


femme fatale

by taezhu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Doyoung is honestly an asshole, F/M, Jaehyun is the nice guy for the first time in a while, M/M, Mafia AU, Mafia NCT, TLDR Eunmi wants to protect Jeno but has Doyoung to deal with
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-07 23:35:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18883579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taezhu/pseuds/taezhu
Summary: kim doyoung dictates the life around him - they’re all pawns in his puzzle that he’s never going to finish. doyoung has an x right over her head and she's the reason it’s there. jaehyun doesn’t need an excuse more valid than the girl he loves to have a knife in someone’s back.





	1. preface

**Author's Note:**

> also featured on my Tumblr as an x you fic! since I prefer writing in 3rd person and people seem to prefer reading second person! ~
> 
> https://taezhu.tumblr.com/post/183469952087/femme-fatale-preface

There's something about him. The tall boy with the black eyes and hair that's always messy. How he looks up to meet your eyes and keeps his eyes trained on you for a couple of moments until he knows everything about you. Your feelings, your aspirations, your life. He's smart. More than that, he's trained to be the best and to take from those around him to better himself. That's the difference with him. No one else matters.

Not his friends. Not his family. Not the ones he claims to love and shares his life with. He knows that no sacrifice is bigger than one of yourself, and he will never be willing to make that sacrifice. He expects it to be made for him. To benefit him. Bring him the sunshine when storms hit. _Sunshine_ , there's not a single thing you can do that's going to ruin my life. He's in power; control.

Kim Doyoung dictates the life around him - they're all pawns in his puzzle that he's never going to finish.

“Of course I'm happy to see you,” his darkened voice lulls through the room. He's sat on the edge of the bed, glass in hand with whiskey or rum, depending on what day it is. “Do you really believe I have no emotions towards you?”

Eunmi smiles bitterly. “I believe you keep me around here to make sure I don't tell people what you tell me at night.”

“You're more than a loose end to me.”

“My apologies, you fuck me too.” Eunmi leans against the door with her arms across her chest, hair let down at the sides of her face and falling over her shoulders. She's tired, her eyes are heavy and she can't think of anything better than the bed Doyoung is sitting on. “I expected you to have called me earlier. I guess you didn't have a stressful enough day.”

“I’ve been with Taeyong all day,” Doyoung says.

“I didn't ask.”

“But I want you to know that I would have called you if I was able to. Taeyong isn't happy with the progress we're making. Johnny lost two men last week. The only reason anyone has any trust left in me is because of-”

Eunmi let's out a single, delicate chuckle at his statement. “Because of me, right? Because I share all my information with you and not Jaehyun? Because I've kept your dick wet and not his?”

His frustration is present. Jung Jaehyun isn’t his biggest concern, but if he ever felt an ounce of love towards her then Jaehyun is the only problem he’ll ever face. Oh, the two men are just as evil as one another but they’re both so different. Jaehyun is brutal. Doyoung is apathetic. Eunmi is a survivor.

She can tell by the way she catches Doyoung’s eyes that he’s changing. A flash of anger followed by a longer period of annoyance and then desire. “Can you stay here tonight?”

Eunmi refuses an answer as she stares over to his cold eyes, dead on the inside and out. She notices his lack of expression, the way his face never moves and he doesn't show any sign of emotion. A sociopath? Eunmi considers it one of many traits Doyoung holds.

“Please?” Doyoung asks. He looks over to the other side of the bed with a clenched jaw. “I miss you. I miss us.”

“I’m busy tomorrow morning,” she tells him. It’s nothing she can fake by heading out to uncharted teritory with Jeno on the other end of the phone line.

“I can drive you tomorrow morning, wherever you need to be,” Doyoung says. He shuts his eyes for a second, taking a slow and deep breath before looking back to her. “I won’t ask again. I’ve had a bad day. I need someone.”

Eunmi stay still, perched in her corner by the door. She’s heard it all before. From more than just Doyoung, actually. She’s had a handful of guys stand across from her and give her the _feel sorry for me_ glance and undress her with their eyes until she crawls next to them and listens to them tell her all their secrets. Fuck, that was her job. She did it to help Doyoung. She doesn’t know how he can fall to his own traps.

“I need you,” he says gently, offering a smile that can’t fault against all others she’s been given.

Because there is something about him, right down to his bones. He’s the difference. He’s why she’s here.

Yet, she can’t answer the question as to _why_ she’s _still_ here.


	2. one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eunmi discovers that jeno is too far in to cope with what he's doing, but has some allies she didn't know about. not that the allies will be any good to her when they have their own motives

“Be careful, won’t you?”

Eunmi hears an ungrateful, for a lack of a better word, scoff from the kitchen. She turns towards the door and rolls her eyes, seeing Jeno appear with his cap in his hands. He’s been trying (and failing) to fix his hair for the past hour and she’s been telling him to leave the hat but apparently it matches Jaemin’s so he has to wear it today.

“I’m always careful,” Jeno tells her. He smiles widely. “I’ve made it this far with a total of zero scratches on my body and no police trailing me yet. Can you trust me when I say that everything is okay?”

She shakes her head. “I’ll trust you when you’re a mile away from Johnny Seo and the rest of those assholes who follow him around like a lost puppy.”

“I thought you liked Jaemin?”

“I like him at face value!” Eunmi pinches the bridge of her nose as she recalls the flirtacious, annoying and immature friend that Jeno enjoys the company of so much. “He’s a nice kid to you. It doesn’t mean he won’t throw you under the bus if the time was right or Johnny asked him to. I’m older than you, Lee Jeno, I know these things!”

Jeno rolls his eyes this time, placing his hat down on his hair successfully. “You’re not in charge of who I’m friends with, you know. I know my parents check on me all the time but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I’m capable of making good friends and keeping myself safe without your help.”

Yeah, he’d eat those words.

Specifically, around 18:02 when Eunmi decided to take a bath and listen to the Dalkom Cafe playlist at full volume to ignore the ladies screaming at each other next door, the thought of only have two days left off work and that Jeno wasn’t home yet.

Jeno was a childhood friend. He was three years younger than her, lived a few doors along from her parents who was best friends with his own. They used to spend a lot of time together until high school when they lost contact, partially because Jeno went to a different school but also because Eunmi had no time for him. When she moved out she went to a new neighbourhood near to Nowon she thought she would be alone but his parents were adament that when he went to university in Seoul they could live together.

And they did, begrudgingly, live together now.

Jeno was a nice kid. More _nice_ than Jaemin, but not much more than that. He was usually quite shy and was kind to everyone, he was smart but not a prodigy, kept her up at night when he would practice guitar. He never had girls home and similarly she never brought guys home, so they ended up with a pretty good routine.

Until Jaemin and that got involved. They were friends in the university he attended studying music production together. The others were Renjun, Haechan and Yangyang, who studied Business, Sociology and Languages respectively. The five of them were runners, of the sorts, not that Eunmi really understood what they did. All she knew was that Jaemin knew someone called Johnny Seo who had a reputation where she worked.

She wasn’t an employee of some fancy company. No, she worked in a community medical centre as one of the secretaries for a nurse who would visit those who were stuck at home. It wasn’t the most fun job, so she made it fun by tracking how many people were listing this guy named Johnny as the person paying for their care.

So a little digging later and she realised that Johnny Seo, as infamous as the glorified war leaders these days, was some kind a ring leader. For a gang, for a protection ring, she wasn’t sure. It was something dangerous that involved more than just knives and guns. Past that she had no idea what was happening.

Eunmi is distracted from the warm water and peaceful music by her phone’s ringtone, obnoxiously stealing her attention away from the bliss of silence and bringing her back to reality. She sighs, looking over to her phone as she decides whether it would be appropriate to answer it. She can’t be bothered, she wants to relax, but then she remembers that Jeno isn’t home yet and goes into panic mode.

Especially when it’s Jaemin’s voice at the other end of the line.

“Eunmi?” he says, quietly. His voice is hushed and the sounds of other people talking stand prominent against his voice. “It’s Jaemin. Can you talk?”

“What’s wrong?” Eunmi asks.

Jaemin clears his throat, delaying his response for a moment. She can hear a door click shut in the background. “I’m at the hospital in Gongneung with Jeno, can you come here? I can’t stay here.”

“What do you mean you’re at the hospital?” she questions. She’s trying to dry herself with one hand and the towel she picked up from the side, rushing to get her clothes back on. “Jaemin, what happened?”

“Just come here quickly, I can’t stay.”

“What do you mean you can’t stay? Is Jeno okay?”

Eunmi is left with another pause, the muffled sounds on the other end of the line causing any voices to be drowned out. Jaemin is talking but she can’t tell who to. There’s the sounds of shouting and she panics, trying to pull her leggins on with one hand.

“Jaemin, answer me!”

“He’s in room 408,” Jaemin tells her, “tell them you’re his sister. If I can see you later I will but please just get here soon, okay?”

“But what-”

The phone call is cut off before she can ask, again, what is wrong. Eunmi’s heart is pounding as her mind runs through a million scenarios of what could have happened. It could be nothing. He could have been in a freak accident. But there was something about Jaemin having to leave that told her it was more than that.

She’s there within twenty minutes, pushing past the staff who are asking her what she’s doing and if she needs help, finding her way to room 408 with her face pale and eyes wide. She must have over tipped the taxi driver almost 90 won, she shoved all her money to him and ran as quick as she could.

The maze of rooms has her lost in the surge of doctors that are trying to get to their patients and nurses who think she’s a patient herself, just until she catches sight of a room with a starting number 4 and she breathes somewhat of a sigh of belief. 405. 406. 407.

“Jeno?” she calls, pushing open the door without a care for who is inside. Luckily, she’s met with the innocent eyes of the very boy, laid on the bed with his clothes torn and patches of skin a purple colour.

She remembers the time that he was 9 and she was starting to grow distant from him, but she found him at the park being picked on by a group of boys and stood up for him. When she took him to her house and put plasters on his cuts and said she’d stick up for him whenever he needed it. It was never that his parents trusted her with his care.

Eunmi breathes a sigh of relief, pushing her way into his room and wrapping her arms around him. He winces, pulling away a little, but eventually gives in and accepts her embrace. His breathing is heavy, he’s not moving that much. She’ll read his chart when she gets a second to and find out what actually happened.

“I thought you were going to be…” Eunmi cuts herself off as she pulls back from Jeno. Her eyes are a little tearful but she wipes it away as she looks over to the window. “What the fuck, Jeno!”

Jeno pouts, struggling to move his arms beside him. “It’s nothing, I’m fine. It was just a fight. Honestly, I’m okay.”

“A fight that means you have to be in hospital? Do you think I’m stupid Lee Jeno? I work with people in medicine, I know what shit puts you in hospital and what doesn’t. What the _fuck_ happened.”

“It’s nothing, seriously. Random guys wanted to steal my phone. It’s nothing.”

“I swear to god.” Eunmi takes a deep breath as she narrows her eyes at Jeno. “Did Jaemin have something to do with this?”

Jeno pauses for a moment. He swallows, harshly, looking away from her eyes and over to the other side of the room. There’s a leather jacket left on the chair which she doesn’t recognise as his. “How did you know where I was?”

“Answer my question first. Was it Jaemin?”

“Jaemin didn’t do this to me.”

Eunmi rolls her eyes. “No, but he was something to do with this? Haechan and Renjun and Yangyang too? Johnny Seo? Was it them?”

“Please don’t say that,” Jeno says softly, “can you please just let me explain when we go home?”

“Jaemin told me that you were here. He told me he was leaving. Why did he leave you? If he’s such a good friend then why is he leaving you?”

“Eunmi, I’m begging you. Can we please talk about this at home?” Jeno asks her.

It’s a plea, his eyes full of fear. She looks back to the window and notices how empty the corridor is. She looks around but can’t see anyone. Her priority is Jeno. She has to remember that. “Are you okay?”

Jeno sighs in relief. “I’m in a bit of pain. I’m… fine. It will be fine.”

“Do you need anything?”

Jeno shakes his head.

“And I suppose this room hasn’t been paid for?”

Jeno shakes his head again. He looks down to the floor and brings his hand to his face, pushing it over his forehead and back over his hair. “They just brought me here. I don’t have any more. I couldn’t tell them no. They have a doctor here they use, that’s why I’m here. I had to come to this hospital. I would have told them if I could have, I just…”

“I can pay it,” Eunmi tells him, “don’t worry about the money for it. Did you break any bones? Is it anything serious?”

“I don’t want you to have to pay it. I can ask Jaemin to when he comes back.”

“I don’t want you to rely on Jaemin for this. Then you owe him. He can ask you to do anything and use this against you. I’m going to pay for it and you’re going to stop talking to all of them until you tell me what is going on with them and what the fuck they’re making you do. Clear?”

A hesitant nod follows her question. Eunmi can’t find it in her to say I told you so to Jeno, nor can she be entirely sympathetic. He’s 18, he’s responsible for his own actions now. He can’t act like she needs to sort it out for him and she can’t control his life, but this isn’t the same.

Johnny Seo is the reason Lee Jeno is in hospital and anyone could have worked that out. Whether he caused it to happen directly or indirectly, it was because of him, and people don’t get out of situations like this easily. The bill for the hospital treatment is a start, but she expects to see more of it soon.

She stays with him for a while. True to his word, Jeno doesn’t say a thing as to what happened to cause it. Not a little mention of it, she didn’t even know where he was that day. He had lectures as far as she knew but she didn’t know his whole timetable. But, he’s okay. A few bruises and two broken ribs, as well as some suspected internal damage to his kidney from where he was kicked so hard in the back. He’s fine. Paying a dumb hospital bill doesn’t even phase her. He’d do it for her.

“Lee Jeno,” she tells the receptionist. She glances back to Jeno’s room, leaving him to call his parents and let them know he was okay in case they got an emergency call. “I need to pay the bill for the treatment?”

The receptionist smiles and begins to type on her computer. Eunmi spends a moment looking through her purse for her card before turning her attention back to Jeno’s room to check he’s still on the phone. “What’s the room number?”

“Four-oh-eight,” Eunmi replies.

Strangely, Eunmi can feel a pair of eyes on her. She dismisses it as being Jaemin, or someone from that crowd, checking to see if Jeno has told her everything and she’s now getting the police involved or something stupid like that. There’s no one around she recognises as being from that group, so she lets it go for a moment.

Just for a moment. She thinks it’s her mind playing tricks on her until she looks back to Jeno’s room and she’s met with the gaze of a tall man with black eyes and a white jacket. Messy hair, yet somehow kept well, with a terrifying appearance that drags spirits away down to her bones.

“I’m sorry Miss, the room appears to already have been paid for,” the receptionist tells her. Eunmi has to pull her attention from the man and back to the situation of Jeno’s room. “It was paid for on a private card by someone twenty minutes ago. Unfortunately I can’t tell you who it was but you don’t have to worry about the amount, Miss.”

Twenty minutes ago? It was impossible to have been anyone of importance to her. No Jaemin, no Johnny around. Unless that was Johnny standing by Jeno’s room. He didn’t look like someone with the nickname Johnny. He had the motives to be him, he had the persona to fit him just by looking him in the eyes.

So Eunmi takes a deep breath and approaches him. To thank him. To realise that she shouldn’t thank him for anything. To walk straight past and care for Jeno.

She tries to. She’s so close to slipping through his reigns as he watches her walk all the way back to the room. She can smell the strange air freshener Jeno had chosen and hear his apologetic voice to his parents for worrying them. She’s so close.

“No thank you?”

He slings an arm around her, catching her from walking forward. Eunmi almost feels frozen, though she realises something very quickly and it pains her to realise this isn’t the situation she ever thought it was. This is someone worse than Johnny Seo.

“I believe we have to talk,” he continues. He uses his hand to turn her around, resting his arm over her shoulders to keep her close to him. “Did you think we would leave Jeno without any payment for risking his life for us? Do you not understand how we work?”

Eunmi bites her tongue. “I don’t know who you are. Who _we_ are.”

“Playing dumb won’t get you anywhere, sweetheart.”

“Jeno hasn’t told me a thing.” His cologne is strong. It has a striking effect, like one of those men with too much money to spend. Or, one of the men who want to appear richer than they are. He dresses like someone with money, the casual wear appearing to be designer or limited. “You think he’s not terrified of whatever you all have going on? He wouldn’t even let me say names here.”

The man hums. “So you know my name?”

“You’re not Jaemin.”

“You’re not stupid then.” He takes her around the corner, to the main reception of the hospital where people are scattered. He stops her by the seats in the middle, sitting her down on one of them with a forceful push. “I like Jeno. He’s a good kid. I wouldn’t have been making this proposition otherwise. The only allies he has are me and Jaemin. You wouldn’t want to break that, would you, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me sweetheart.”

He chuckles deeply at her comment. He’s got an innocent look to his face, though his eyes hold so much more. Darkness. Evil. “Okay, baby girl. Want to tell me how you’re going to repay me for looking after Jeno?”

“I don’t know who the _fuck_ you are,” she repeats.

“I’m Kim Doyoung,” he tells her. He smiles, grins even, placing his hand on her forearm to hold her in place. His grip is tight, burning her skin as he squeezes her. “You’re Yoo Eunmi, you’re twenty one, you live about twelve and a half minutes from here in an apartment block with a broken lift. Your next door neighbour has a cat and your bed sheets are blue. Your top drawer has some pretty underwear in it. So tell me, baby, how are you going to repay me for Jeno?”

“I have money. Take whatever you want.”

Doyoung scoffs. “You think I need money?”

“I can’t give you anything else,” she answers, “you can take my house, you can take my money, you can take whatever you want.”

“I have something better in mind,” Doyoung says. His voice is full of sin, a force to be reckoned with in a world that’s too small for him. He’ll burn his name into your skin and make sure you remember every piece of him. Power, control. What if you forget him? It would never happen.

For Jeno. She tells herself it’s for Jeno.

***

Eunmi stands in Jeno's doorway, awkwardly watching as he attempts to pull his jumper over his head. He insists he has to go out today, with Jaemin of all people, despite not being able to walk properly still.

She wants to protect him herself, but she knows it's too much for her. She hasn't got the money, the power or the people to challenge someone like Johnny Seo or Kim Doyoung or anyone like that. Working with them seemed right, the most honest way to make sure Jeno didn't have a gun put to his head for any of his mistakes.

“Are you sure you don't want me to drive you?” Eunmi asks. “I was going to go out anyway, it will be easier for you.”

Jeno shakes his head. “I don't think it's a good idea if you come.”

“Because of Jaemin?” Eunmi questions, only to be met with Jeno shaking his head. “Because of Johnny?”

“I don't want him to think you're getting too involved. If he sees you hanging around me then he'll think that you know stuff. He'll… don't get involved with Johnny. Act like you know nothing.”

Which she _basically_ did already. “But you'll let me know you're okay later, won't you?”

“I'll text you every few hours.”

Eunmi reluctantly lets him go, watching from the kitchen window as he disappears into the passenger side of a black Mercedes with blacked out windows. She can’t see anyone else in it, but she notices the second car that pulls away with it and assumes that it wasn’t Jaemin picking him up today.

So a few hours goes slowly, with Eunmi sitting on the couch waiting on a text from Jeno to just say he was safe. That’s all she wanted. Instead she’s met with a knock on her door about two hours after Jeno left, half expecting it to be Jeno with another broken bone that she needs to fix.

Though she’s not stupid. She approaches the door with caution and isn’t ultimately surprised to see the familiar face of her new worst nightmare on the other side.

“Nice to see you again,” Doyoung greets. He pushes past her, allowing himself into her home without any consideration for another. He stares down the pictures on the wall and the lack thereof, stopping on a picture of Eunmi and Jeno from the previous year. “I’d think he was your brother, but he’s not related to you in any way. What is it with you two? Why do you care so much about him?”

“Some of us having emotional connections to those around them.”

Doyoung hums, picking up the picture. “Of course.”

“What do you want?” Eunmi asks.

His presence isn’t one she wants to welcome, particularly not when he enters the doorway that leads to her bedroom and she imagines himall over her things. Though he ignores her question, she knows why he’s here. Jeno. The deal. Whatever he has planned for her. This is just his way of scaring her into submission.

“I asked you a question.” Standing in the doorway, Eunmi observes as Doyoung picks up a book from the side of her bed. “Can you stop touching my things and tell me why you’re here?”

“Mrs. Dalloway. Interesting choice. I didn’t think you would be the type to read Woolf.”

Eunmi notices his hand which is wrapped in a bandage. She wonders if this is why he’s recruiting her. “I like the reference to flowers.”

“What’s your favourite?”

“Flower?” Eunmi asks him. Doyoung nods once, reading the back cover of the book before meeting her eyes and raising his eyebrows at her lack of an answer. “Chrysanthemum.”

Doyoung fails to answer her, instead placing the book down where he picked it up. He continues to peer around the room, stopping on a dress she has on a hanger that’s on the outside of her wardrobe. A small, black dress to match her black thigh high boots that were left in the hall which he most definitely saw. Doyoung hums to himself, before turning to her.

“How is Jeno? I believe Johnny has asked to see him personally today. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, though. Johnny has realised that Jeno isn’t stupid and is worth keeping around here. Tell me, how much more about us has he told you?”

Eunmi pauses for a moment. To lie to Doyoung has dire consequences. “He told me what happened yesterday. That there was other people who are your rivals that found him when he was dropping his things off.”

“Did you ask him about me?” Doyoung questions.

“Why would I do that?”

“I wonder if you’re curious about me, is all.” Doyoung proceeds to sit down on the edge of her bed and pick up her perfume on the bedside table, smelling the inside of the lid before placing it back down. “I suppose you know why I’m here, though. So let’s talk about what you’ll be doing. I’ve realised that having a woman in my team will be advantageous to me. You’re attractive. Men will tell you their deepest secrets for the opportunity to have you moaning for them. I want to use that to my advantage, and to NCT.

“Let me put it this way. Jeno is a wanted man. Not by the police, but by every one of our rivals who could easily have him taken down in a second. NCT are his protection. If anything happens to NCT, then Jeno won’t be able to escape any of this. Now you’re involved, neither will you. So tell me, honestly, are you going to work for me to help NCT or are you going to rat us all out? Jaehyun and his boys will have a field day if you are.”

“Look, Doyoung, whatever you want me to do, I’ve agreed to it already. Can you spit it out?”

“Can you hold on for a moment?” Doyoung asks. He pulls a black phone from his pocket, passing it in Eunmi's direction. She only stares back down to it. “It’s yours. Your instructions will be on there. I will text you whenever I need anything.”

“I don’t even know what I’m doing to begin with. Can you tell me?”

“Say please.”

“Tell me what I’ll be doing for you.”

Doyoung bites his tongue. He turns away from her, back to the wall covered in some pictures and posters she has collected over the years. He observes the for a moment until there’s another picture of her with Jeno, this time with their families. “To ensure Jeno is protected, you will be completing some tasks for me. Nothing you can’t handle. Men who can’t control themselves, you’ll be watching them and getting information from them. Women, too. Whoever I need it from. It’s easier to have a beautiful girl like you to seduce them than send one of my men to do it. Sex goes further than money in a world like this.”

“Do you speak from experience?”

“Jungwoo will be at your side,” Doyoung states, ignoring her posed question. “He’s good. He will make sure you act appropriately before you start joining Kun and I on tasks. Don’t get too close to him, or I may have to intervene.”

“Why would you intervene?” Eunmi asks him, innocent to his words and the meaning behind them at first.

Though she may have liked an answer, Doyoung disappears without muttering any type of goodbye.

***

“Are you Jungwoo?” Eunmi asks, sitting across from a cute looking boy that vaguely matched the description that Doyoung gave her. “I’m, uh… Eunmi.”

He looks up to her with wide eyes and a blank expression. She’s afraid at first that he’ll be the wrong person, but when he locks his phone and pulls out his earphones she finds some luck. He smiles widely and turns his head slightly to the side. “Eunmi? Nice to meet you! Doyoung has told me so much about you, it’s great to finally meet you!”

“Yeah, uh…” Eunmi offers a smile in return that doesn’t quite match. “Nice to meet you too, Jungwoo.”

“I know Doyoung can be a little overwhelming but think about it reasonably, he has to be in this line of work. You and I don’t have to worry that much. Kun and Taeil help him out. All we have to do is what they don’t have time to do. Do you know what we’re doing today?”

Eunmi shakes her head.

“There’s this guy who has been stealing some resources from NCT for the past while. We have this place where we store weapons in the South and it’s not that secure, but secure enough not to have lost this much.” Eunmi questions if Jungwoo is a bit _too_ open with her about NCT, though she imagines that Doyoung has done his research and Jungwoo isn’t that stupid. “I’ve been speaking to Chenle about it. Chenle is the guy to go to if ever you need CCTV or anything tech-related. I’ll give you his details. But Chenle told me that this guy comes to this cafe every day around 4pm so you and I are here to plant something on him. Are you a good actress?”

“I can try?”

Jungwoo hums, passing over a small microchip from his hoodie pocket. “Good! You just need to pretend to be my girlfriend until this is over. I need you to go and get a drink, then when you’re near to him get that chip in his bag. He’s a messy guy, never cleans it out. Once you’ve done that, everything is sorted.”

“I can do that,” Eunmi reassures him, “is that literally it?”

“Yeah, for the time being. Kun and Taeil have the important stuff. I don’t really know what’s going on with it, but I’m glad it’s not on me.”

She takes the time to look over him with a careful gaze. He doesn’t _look_ like he would be involved in this type of thing. He seems happy, like the only thing he had ever really worried about was that one time he handed an assignment in late. His clothes are washed well and he has a sparkle in his eye that means he hasn’t been in this situation for very long.

He reminds Eunmi of Jeno before that fight ever happened, and it hits home harder than she ever meant it to.

Jungwoo is Doyoung’s Jeno, pulled into this to advantage Doyoung. Just as she was. Just as Johnny did with Jeno. All of them are as bad as each other and she’s disgusted by the fact there’s _so many_. Kun? Taeil? The sounds of their names bring a bitter taste to her mouth.

At the very least she could help Jungwoo.

“Where are you from?” Eunmi asks, breaking the silence that looms between the pair of them. “You look like you’re from somewhere a bit nicer than here.”

Jungwoo finds the time to laugh at her words. “You’re right. I’m from Gunpo. It’s not too far, but it’s prettier than this. What about you?”

“Incheon. I prefer it there, too.”

“Oh, yeah! You and Jeno are from the same place. I completely forgot,” Jungwoo says. He waits for a moment, carefully picking his words to not give away the entire story. “How is Jeno? We used to see each other a lot but Johnny is targeting the East now.”

“He’s okay. You should come over some time to see him. I’m pretty sure that he hates living with me now.”

Jungwoo frowns. “I mean, I would but… We’re not really supposed to.”

“What do you mean?” Eunmi questions, Jaemin’s uneasiness to visit their house becoming apparent to her as she remembers each time he’d been over.

“Doyoung doesn’t really want me to spend that much time with you,” Jungwoo tells her with some hesitation, “I guess Taeyong doesn’t like when any of us spend too much time in groups. I’ve never seen Lucas outside of when we’ve done some work together.”

“Lucas?”

Jungwoo pauses for a moment at the mention of the name. She’s not heard it before, though she’s sure they all must use different names anyway. There’s obviously people that Doyoung isn’t telling her about, which she had expected.

“Lucas and I were friends before we came into this,” Jungwoo tells her. He scrolls through his phone until he finds a picture of them both together and shows it to her with a solemn smile.

Lucas is a tall boy, even taller than Jungwoo who must have been nearing six feet. He is bigger, too. His large frame looks big enough to take down any man who was to approach him. Though his smile, wide and unapologetic, tells a story of someone who’s far happier in person and probably hurt people by accident. He doesn’t seem like one of _them_ either.

“Lucas is from Hong Kong. We used to live together since we met in university when Doyoung recruited me. He was going to take Lucas too but didn’t like the way he acted. He’s better with his hands. So, he gave Lucas over to Jaehyun and we don’t see each other much anymore. Jaehyun probably wouldn’t allow it, either.”

“Why wouldn’t he allow you to see each other?”

“Jaehyun has been trying to take Johnny’s position for a while,” Jungwoo tells her. Eunmi is more interested than before. If she can make this a bitch fight and have something entertaining going on around her, she’ll take it much easier. Doyoung had mentioned Jaehyun’s name too? She’s sure she remembers it. “He’s below Johnny in ranking, but he’s cold blooded and doesn’t care about  _anyone_. He’s the only one that I could say is as bad as Doyoung. The only difference is that Jaehyun will protect the people who are under him in order to protect what’s his. Jaehyun wants to kiss Taeyong’s ass so much that he’ll promote him to a higher rank too. More power, more money. There’s a lot too it.”

“And why doesn’t he just take Doyoung’s position instead of Johnny’s?” Eunmi asks.

Jungwoo pauses again, looking down to the table where his phone lays. He locks it, pushing it back into his pocket and taking a look around the room as though he’s fearful someone is watching him. _Them_. “Because anything Doyoung wants, Doyoung gets. He won’t give up his position here that easily.”

***

“I heard you did well on your first mission.”

Eunmi, frightened to the point she had grabbed Jeno’s shaving blade off the side and pointed it in the direction of Kim Doyoung, is caught by the said man with just a towel and face mask on. She watches as his lips curl into a smirk, looking down her body before moving back to her eyes with high hopes.

“What do you want, Doyoung?” Eunmi asks, pulling the sheet mask from her face and tossing it in the bin, keeping the shaving blade in her hand. This is the first time she’d been thankful Jeno didn’t have a traditional method of shaving. “I thought I was Jungwoo’s problem now.”

“You’re mine,” Doyoung states, “if I want to visit you, I can.”

“I find it quite rude that you see me as property. What am I, an asset to you?”

Doyoung hums, taking a step towards her to pull the blade from her hands. She doesn’t have any strength compared to him. The blade is out of her grasp before she can even register it. “I have a question to ask you.”

Eunmi remains silent. She sees some weakness in Doyoung, the way he leans against her door frame and his hands are loose at his side provides an opportunity for her to push him back just enough to shut the door and give her a chance to get changed. Doyoung doesn’t object so she assumes he realises what she’s doing. Who’s weak now, Doyoung?

“The question?” Eunmi calls, noticing that Doyoung has gone quiet too.

“Are you free tonight?” Doyoung asks. He pauses, leaving Eunmi to stare at the door with confusion as she pulls her shirt over her head. “Of course I know you’re free. But, would you like to come to dinner with me?”

Eunmi almost misses the question he asks. She’s looking around for the shorts she was sure she left on the radiator for her to put on and when she realises she can’t find them and will have to walk outside with just a tee shirt and underwear on, with Doyoung staring right at her, she lets out one long exasperated sigh.

“Is that a no?”

“I’ll say yes if you promise to close your eyes when I come outside,” Eunmi tell him.

“Why would I do that?”

Eunmi rolls her eyes, opening the door an inch to see Doyoung staring right at her. He looks down briefly and notices her bare legs. She can sacrifice that for now. “So I come to dinner with you tonight. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Fine. Whatever.”

She knows deep down that Doyoung doesn’t keep his eyes shut but the thought that he _might_ have not stared at her ass makes her feel a bit better as she searches for her shorts and eventually finds them in the corner of the room. When she turns around Doyoung has his eyes closed, thankfully, and she takes a moment to fully observe him.

He must wear some type of eyeliner, since his eyes look dark and full of vengeance. His clothes are still top brand, shirt ironed out of any wrinkles that could have presented themselves. If he wasn’t in NCT, she supposes her parents would have approved of him. How he looks, that he’s smart, that he’s tall. He was attractive, and no one could deny that. His morality just didn’t sit comfortably with hers.

“Can I look now?”

“Shit, yeah, sorry.” Eunmi turns around to look busy and finds her phone on the windowsill. When she turns around to Doyoung, he’s sitting on her bed like he did before. He looks good there. Dude, is that a crush on Kim Doyoung developing because she looked at him _once_? Get help. “Why do you want me to go to dinner with you tonight?”

Doyoung shrugs. He picks up the book on her nightstand are reads the back of it. “It’s poetic, I suppose. You hate me, so I make it up to you by making you spend time with me. I promise you I’m not all bad. Do you like Thai food?”

“Yeah?”

“Good. I have a table booked for 7pm. I’ll stay here with you until then.”

“You will?”

Doyoung nods with a sarcastic smile. “I will. Afterall, I have to show you that I’m not that bad or dinner will be terrible. You get to ask questions, too. So go ahead, ask me any questions you have about… me, NCT, anything you fancy. I’ll love to answer them.”

He seems legitimate. He leans back on his arms behind him, open to her questions which he expects to be fired at him any time soon. Unfortunately, the one time she’s supposed to have questions, Eunmi can’t find any that seem good enough to ask. There’s just _one_. The only question which Eunmi expects Doyoung might turn her down for. He’s full of surprises, though.

“Why’d you join NCT?” Eunmi asks him, pulling her desk chair to her side so she can sit opposite to him. “Where’s the appeal? What do you enjoy about this… job?”

“Let me answer your question like this. Taeyong joined NCT because it was his father’s legacy. He recruited Johnny and I straight after. Johnny joined because he was barely surviving college and needed money. He recruited Yuta and Jaehyun not long after. Jaehyun wanted power after spending his whole life chasing what others were doing. He wanted to be the person who was in _control_. Yuta joined because he wanted to be recognised everywhere. His name in flashing lights and a special place in hell for him. Everyone has a motive that is family, money, power or fame. That’s how NCT has always run.”

“And you? Which one is it?”

Doyoung meets her eyes with a harsh stare. “All of them.”

***

Eunmi finds herself at an apartment in the centre of Seoul in the middle of the night. She’d been watching a documentary when Doyoung and Jungwoo both text her at the same time to come to the same address. She assumed it was Doyoung’s apartment by the way it was stylised and the price tag that came with it.

She hadn’t seen Doyoung since two nights ago when they had dinner. It was surprisingly pleasant, partially because Doyoung did most of the talking and described his entire life story. His time studying Law at college and hsi journey in NCT up until now. He left her to tell him her life story, too. His one was just more interesting. It was like a different Doyoung in front of her when he spoke about this like it was nothing.

“Eunmi?” a man says, opening the door widely to show the inside of the apartment. He isn’t as tall as Jungwoo or Doyoung, but has soft brown hair and even softer features. When she nods, he smiles and takes a step back from the door. “Thank you for coming.”

Eunmi shakes her head, slipping off her jacket as she walks through the door. She takes a look around the apartment and notices that it’s a little off Doyoung’s taste. Turning back to the man, she offers him her hand as an introduction. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Qian Kun, call me Kun,” he tells her, “Doyoung has told me a lot about you.”

“Jungwoo told me you do important stuff. I’m gonna take a guess that either Doyoung thinks I’m good enough to work with you or I’m in serious trouble and you’re going to kill me.”

Kun shakes his head and laughs her comments off. “You’re here because Doyoung has requested a meeting between us all. He’s downstairs, he wishes to speak to you before the Taeil and Jungwoo get here.”

“He does? Why?”

“To update you,” Kun says. He gestures over to the door on the wall to the right of them. “Follow the stairs down and he will be there. You can’t get lost. Don’t worry, he’s not down there to kill you, I promise you.”

Of all the people she can trust, Kun seems like one of them. It’s the vibe he gives off, like he cares about others and their safety. He’s like a mother. It’s nice. She notices how he immediately returns to the kitchen area when she starts to walk to the door so that he can continue to cook whatever he was doing before. His smile was inviting, too.

 _Not_ her type.

If the short hair, dark makeup, the lip ring and the tattoos weren’t a give away, then it would definitely be the harsh attitude and absence of caring about anything.

“Doyoung?” Eunmi calls down the stairs, taking each step with caution. She sees some light come into view first, then Doyoung’s figure sitting on a chair in the centre of the room. He’s watching her carefully, lips pressed into a line. She figures he’s annoyed at _something_. “I came here as soon as I could.”

“You’re earlier than both Taeil and Jungwoo. Given that you live further than them, I have to make the assessment that you’re good at taking orders.”

“You think so?” Eunmi questions. She _thinks_ that taking this a different route with Doyoung may get her some favours. “I’m better at giving them to people. Wait until you see that.”

Doyoung keeps his gaze for a moment before a scoff leaves his lips. “Are you flirting with me, Yoo Eunmi?”

“I can make it more obvious if you’d like.”

“On another day, I would say yes. This is important though, I need to speak with you about an issue persisting with us,” Doyoung informs her.

“Kun promised you weren’t going to kill me,” Eunmi returns, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. “So please don’t kill me. If I did something wrong then… I’m sorry. I tried. You can give me to one of the other people and I’ll slave away there instead. Oh! I have an idea. I can infiltrate them and cause their team to fall from the inside out. I’ll ruin Johnny and you can take his power too.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t take Johnny’s position. Jaehyun or Yuta would.”

“But you’re thinking about what I said, so that means I did actually fuck up?”

“Just sit down,” Doyoung tells her, pointing to the chair beside him. Eunmi follows his words and takes the chair, turning towards him with a blank expression. “I have to say, though, I’m intrigued by how you manage to get every man around you to fall at their feet. Maybe I should send you to Yuta so I can take his power. We’d make a good duo, don’t you think?”

Eunmi doesn’t quite take in Doyoung’s words.

“Don’t look like you’ve seen a ghost. I have worse news. Someone is targeting NCT and it means that you’re in danger, as are Jungwoo, Kun, Taeil and I. When there is a problem like this, we all come to Kun’s as he has this lovely room down here that we store things in. Taeil is bringing weapons and Jungwoo is bringing the computers. All the important things we need to save are kept down here in order to preserve them. That’s why I brought you here.”

“To keep me down here?”

Doyoung sighs. “To keep you safe. I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you under my watch.”

“Doyoung, I hate to tell you this but… we don’t even know each other that well. You don’t need to save my life.” Eunmi leans back in her chair and looks around the room. “Surely it’s more profitable to save you, Kun and Taeil. The important people. Jungwoo and I will be just fine to make it on our own with different identities in Japan or China.”

“I’d rather you be with me.”

“When you say things like that it sounds as though you care about me,” Eunmi tells Doyoung, shrugging at the end. She watches as his expression fails and he looks away from her. “I mean… thank you for your concern. It means a lot. Thank you for offering to keep me safe and to help me with Jeno too. It’s appreciated.”

Doyoung looks back to her with wide eyes. You’d have thought he’d never heard the words thank you be mentioned before with eyes like that. Eunmi catches his gaze and just _stares_ for a while. He’s pretty, as she said before, but even more so this close. His skin is perfect. He has lips shaped perfectly too.

Is that the only way to describe him? Perfect? Because he’s not. There’s so much blood on his hands that it covers him all over now. Eunmi can’t see pass that. Not really. It’s becoming easier than before, though.

“Protecting you means a lot to me.” Doyoung places his hand over her’s, atop the table in the middle. “Do you think I offered to protect Jeno because I need him around? The less men Johnny has the better. I wanted you on my side. Jeno talks a lot, you know?”

“About what?”

“You. What else would I care about? He talked about you enough for word to spread around. Johnny is fond of Jeno enough to make him interested in recruiting you. Jaehyun too. Except you’re smart. You should have been with me this whole time. Not doing the drugs, not killing people who don’t know any better. You’re smart. You’re more than just an _asset_. You could take Jaehyun, Yuta or even Johnny’s place and we could both overthrow Taeyong one day. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?”

Eunmi feels as though she’s had multiple confessions at once. Jeno talked about her? Doyoung _cared_ about her? He wanted to overthrow NCT with her? Jaehyun and Johnny wanted her too? There’s a billion questions running through her mind, mixed with the thought that she’s known Doyoung for no more than three week by this point.

None of her questions are answered, because Jungwoo comes bolting down the stairs with a both of files and USBs in hand which he drops on the table with a huff. He smiles at her, then turns to Doyoung with another USB being pulled from his pocket. “Everything you need is on this, I got a few copies of it for everyone. One of Jaehyun’s cousins was killed about an hour ago and he’s not happy.”

“By the same people who went after Jaemin’s sister?” Doyoung questions. His demeanour changes completely, as though the conversation with Eunmi never occurred. Eunmi is left to hold onto his words and watch as he becomes the Doyoung from before. “Do we have any names?”

Jungwoo nods. “His sister, but no names. They’re invisible. Since they already targeted Johnny’s men and Jaehyun too, that means we’re next. I think they’ll go for Eunmi. She’s the most open, she’s easy to get to and she’s enough to get to Johnny again. They’re weakening us without going for the main leaders. They’re smart.”

“If they’re smart they won’t touch her,” Doyoung states, “give me all the information you have. I’ll find out who they are.”


	3. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eunmi meets her own ally, but at what cost will they come?

The stars are shining through the night sky, not a cloud to cover their beauty or the light that comes from the moon. Eunmi looks up to them as she lays in the unfamiliar bed, scared to move or look anywhere else but the window that faces her.

She finds peace in the night sky. It’s constant. No changing emotions or reasons to hate her. No new threats or things that could hurt her. It’s calm.

“It’s three in the morning.” She feels the bed shuffle beside her though nothing else. “Why are you still awake, sweetheart?”

“It’s hard to sleep where you haven’t slept before, Doyoung.”

“Is that because you’re scared, though?” he asks, hand resting on her shoulder to pull her back to him.

He smiles, genuinely for once, leaning on his head on the pillow as he watches her. Eunmi stays still, opting to remain quiet at his question. She barely flinches when he touches her collarbone and traces around it.

Doyoung had called her here a few hours ago. She expected it to be Jungwoo about a task they would follow up tomorrow, but when she heard Doyoung’s voice she was… relieved. If it was Doyoung who called then he wouldn’t ask her to do more than spend time with him.

He didn’t put her in danger. He’d keep her safe, away from all harm that could come to her like he wanted to protect her from the cold and dangerous world he brought her in to. Kim Doyoung was becoming her very own juxtaposition. Danger and safety. Evil and kind. Want and need.

“You don’t have to be scared of me.” Doyoung’s fingertips find her cheek. He brushes over the skin until he reaches her lips. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Eunmi neglects a reaction to his touch and focuses on his eyes instead. “I know you wouldn’t. I’m not scared of you.”

“Then why are you so friendly with Jungwoo? Jeno? Everyone but me? Even Kun said how nice you were. I don’t see that side of you.”

Of course. Eunmi should have expected it from her senior. She had noticed his stare from the other side of the room when she would talk about chinese food with Kun, or when her and Jungwoo would joke about something on instagram. Whenever she was with Doyoung it was serious. Nothing they ever did was friendly.

And she wanted to keep it that way.

Though a part of her wished to know the real Kim Doyoung, the one who hated to sleep alone and wanted to adopt kittens instead of spend his money on clothes and accessories, she knew it would never come to that. Why?

Doyoung was scared of her.

The power she could have over him. How much he needed to hear her voice on a daily basis in order to make his life easier. Jungwoo told her his deepest fears, Kun confessed how much he hated this life to her. Even Taeil had started to tell her how much he missed his old life.

Doyoung couldn’t say anything more than what you’d hear in a love song.

“Do you want to?” Eunmi asks. She brings her hand to his own, taking it away from her face. Doyoung seems interested by her offer. “Tell me something about you, and I’ll tell you something about me. We can be… friends. Do what friends do.”

“I want to be more than your friend.”

“But we have to start somewhere, Doyoung. So tell me your biggest fear and I’ll tell you mine. An eye for an eye.”

There’s a moment of silence and Doyoung works through his choices. He looks from the sky outside, to Eunmi, and then her lips. He stutters, but manages his words in the end. “I’m afraid of people.”

“People?”

“People are scary, don’t you think?” Doyoung asks. He looks distant. “How they can change emotions so quickly. How nothing can mean anything to them. How expandable people are. Everything about people terrifies me. I don’t trust anyone apart from…”

He stops again. Contemplating telling her his true feelings, more than that maybe. Doyoung doesn’t like emotions but he’s not stupid as to what he’s feeling. There is only one person he feels like he can trust but he knows that information is sacred in a world like this.

Eunmi realises that he’s not going to finish, and decides to treat him like she would treat a friend. Stop them from feeling embarrassed or scared. They can be friends. “My biggest fear is drowning. I hate the idea of getting stuck in water or not being able to get out of the ocean. I never used to go in swimming pools when I was younger in case I couldn’t get out.”

“That’s mediocre,” Doyoung tells her, furrowing his brows, “you can overcome a fear like that.”

“You can’t destroy elements. Mother nature is more powerful than you, Kim Doyoung. You need to accept that.”

“No one is more powerful than me, Yoo Eunmi. You need to accept that.”

***

Eunmi is sitting on her own at a park a few miles from where she lives when she's approached by a man wearing a red jumper and black jeans. She's met so many people recently that she puts nothing past it, continuing to read the book in her hands.

He sits down beside her, crossing his legs and pulling his face mask down so it rests under his chin. She waits for a moment before looking up to him, only to be met with a smile that's built on darkness.

“Nice to meet you, Eunmi,” he says. He closes her book shut and takes it from her hands, placing it between them. “For someone so open, you're hard to track down. I've had Chenle follow you for a day now and none of us can work out your movements. You're smart. I see why Doyoung has decided to keep you as an asset.”

Being referred to as something so miniscule as Doyoung's asset sends her into a state of solitude. She's reminded that Doyoung doesn't care for her any more than he cares for Johnny Seo.

“I'm sure Doyoung has mentioned my name before - Jaehyun. I hear that you can be of some assistance to me if I require.”

“I work for Doyoung,” Eunmi tells him.

“I'm aware. I know what he says about not helping others out either. Have you not noticed how selfish he is? If I asked Taeyong to move you to my control Doyoung would lose you in a heartbeat,” Jaehyun states. He doesn't remind her of Doyoung. He's smart but he's not like Doyoung, he's sweet but he's not kind. He's had this conversation before. “Of course I won't be the one to cause an internal conflict, so I'm hoping you'll assist me without the need for Taeyong or Doyoung to know.”

Eunmi decides to remain calm. She breathes deeply through her nose and filters out and of the problems she can see occuring. Jaehyun could help her. “What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing more than you already do for Doyoung. Just… for different people. Ones I'm interested in. They won't be as nice as the ones Doyoung is looking into but they're a lot stupider. They don't want power, they want wealth. Two main desires, money and sex. You think that would be okay for you?”

“And what do I get out of it?”

Jaehyun hums. He has a softness to him that Eunmi sees past. Under his sweet smile, caring eyes and daring personality he's nothing more than the men he wants to find. The only difference is that he wants power. He, Johnny and Doyoung all want to be the most powerful. To be in control. To be the new Taeyong.

“I'll pay you double what Doyoung pays you.”

Eunmi shakes her head. “Money means nothing. I don't want money.”

“Then you have me,” Jaehyun replies. He rests his hand on her thigh and smiles once more. “And not many people get me.”

***

“Lee Jeno,” Eunmi says sternly, walking out of the bathroom with narrowed eyes. “We need to talk. Get your ass out here now.”

She waits in the living room for a moment, expecting to hear Jeno come out of his room eventually but she’d instead met with silence. Not the kind of silence that she had expected in her own apartment. She was sure she heard him come home earlier. How strange.

Deciding to approach his room with caution, Eunmi presses her fingertips to the door and then her ear to the scratched wood to try and listen in. There’s not a sound that leaves that place, instead it’s just her own heart beating that she can hear. It sends a shiver down her spine.

Eunmi _knows_ she heard someone come in here earlier. She’s not sure when, maybe an hour ago, but no one had left after that. Walking on the side of caution she decides to text Jungwoo. No. She texts Doyoung. She hovers over Jungwoo’s contact for a brief moment before changing it to Doyoung’s and texting him that she thinks someone is in her apartment.

She _knows_ she’ll get the hour lecture from Doyoung about how she needs to move somewhere else, so she’s surprised when he tells her that he’ll be there in ten minutes and that she should wait in the bathroom. Those ten minutes are longer than anything she’s ever felt before.

She wanted to ring Doyoung. She’s not sure it will help him, but if anything it would slow him down and she would feel even worse. Each second that goes by makes her worry about everything it could be. From Doyoung’s enemy to a serial killer, all the way to facing Jeno in a situation she would hate.  She only wanted to call Doyoung so that she felt safer. Doyoung would protect her.

She receives a text from Doyoung to tell her that he’s outside just when she thinks that the silence is sending her to insanity.

“Don’t speak,” Doyoung tells her, pushing through into the room when she opens the door. She follows his command, staying at his heel as he walks over to Jeno’s door, the only one that’s actually shut. He looks back to her, and gestures to her to stay behind him

Doyoung opens the door with caution, yet he doesn’t seem to fear a thing. His breathing is even, he doesn’t appear to be fazed. The only thing that she can hear is her own staggered breathing. His silence worries her, too.

“Johnny,” Doyoung states. His body drops, hand on what she presumes to be his weapon in his pocket falling. Eunmi peaks around his arm to see a man sitting on Jeno’s bed with a knife in his hands. “What are you doing here?”

This is the infamous Johnny. He looks like someone you would walk past and be unbothered. He doesn’t look like he fits the role of one of South Korea’s biggest drug lords. He has the face of someone you can trust. An inviting stance that she would have mistaken from generosity and kindness.

Johnny looks straight through Doyoung and meets Eunmi’s gaze. He smiles, much like Jaehyun. “Yoo Eunmi. Nice to meet you. I don’t see the need for Doyoung to be here too. This was meant to be a meeting between the two of us. To introduce myself.”

“I don’t trust you,” Doyoung says, “you have a knife.”

“You have a gun, Doyoung. We’re just as bad as each other.”

“What do you want?” Eunmi interrupts, noticing the tension between the two of them. Things may have been said, been done and been forgiven. They had a history she didn’t want to know about.

“To introduce myself. I said that, didn’t I?” Johnny stands from the bed and puts the knife down on Jeno’s desk. “I’m sure everyone already talks about me. I’m Johnny. I work with Jeno. I did want to talk to you on your own to discuss matters with Jeno, and yourself. I heard about you and Doyoung’s relationship and wanted to confirm it for myself. Do you call him each time you’re worried someone might kill you? I’m sure Doyoung loves that thought. Does he know that you once dated a member of ACE?”

“ACE?” Eunmi asks.

“Of course I know,” Doyoung states. He rolls his eyes. “She was fourteen. Do you think she kept in contact with Kim Sehyoon? And I know you’re about to tell me that she was friends with Park Junhee too. Stick to the drugs, Johnny. You’re much better at it.”

Johnny places his hands in his pockets and begins to look around Jeno’s room. Doyoung glances back to her to check she’s okay. “It’s risky to bring people you don’t know into business like this, Doyoung.”

“I know Eunmi. Do you know Jeno?”

“I know he wouldn’t betray me. Can you say the same?”

“You introduced yourself, so what do you want?” Eunmi interrupts again. She moves from where she stands behind Doyoung and makes her presence known. “I’m sure that business between the two of us isn’t that important. Shouldn’t you be looking to the people going after Jaemin’s family?”

Johnny scoffs. “That isn’t my line of work. But, since you asked, I was here to make you a deal.”

“What deal?” Doyoung questions.

“Not one for you,” Johnny says, “you don’t want to be here, Eunmi. Quit. Leave Korea and never come back. If you do that, I’ll protect Jeno like Doyoung says he will. I don’t want someone who hates us to be working under us all. So quit.”

“No.” Doyoung reaches for his pocket again. “That won’t happen.”

Johnny ignores Doyoung’s answer. He meets Eunmi’s eyes with raised eyebrows, expecting an answer. She says the first thing that comes into her head. “I couldn’t trust you to protect Jeno.”

“But you trust Kim Doyoung? You’re deluded.”

“Leave,” Doyoung tells him, pulling the gun from his pocket and pointing it straight to Johnny. Johnny doesn’t flinch, he barely even moves at the sight of a gun pulled at him. She knows Doyoung can and _will_ pull the trigger.

As does Johnny. He slips past Doyoung, obviously unhappy with how the situation turned out for him. That doesn’t stop him from telling Eunmi some wise words as he passes her. “You’re smarter than him, don’t forget that.”

***

“I’m Hendrey, this is Xiaojun. You’re Eunmi?”

The two boys ahead of her are both younger than she is, yet have an aura around them so dark that she fears their presence right down to her bones. She ignores it, spurred on by Jaehyun’s presence behind her, giving them her hand to shake. “The one and only. Nice to meet you both.”

“Eunmi will be working with you,” Jaehyun states to the three of them. He places his hand on Eunmi’s shoulder and squeezes it gently. “She knows about what has been happening. She works with Doyoung when she’s not here. She’ll be helping you both out with finding out who’s behind the recent murders.”

“Does Doyoung already know something?” Xiaojun asks.

“He has Taeil working on it. Doesn’t trust me yet with that kind of information. I know that he thinks it may be Bangtan.”

Hendrey hums, placing the throwing knives he had been using onto the ground. “Bangtan? I hadn’t considered Bangtan. I thought it may have been ACE.”

“ACE don’t use knives,” Jaehyun tells them, “I’m trusting the three of you will be able to find some information between you. Chenle, Jisung and Lucas are also on the case. We’ll meet soon to discuss. Carry on what you were doing, we won’t keep you any longer.”

Eunmi had been invited to his, for a lack of a better word, headquarters, in order to introduce her to his team. The only ones around at the moment were Hendrey and Xiaojun who weren’t conversationalists at all. They practiced their weapon skills and often didn’t care for what people had to say. She could see why Jaehyun liked them.

The only disadvantage to those two being the only ones around was that she had to now sit and _wait_ with Jaehyun. Eunmi dreads the thought of having to make more conversation where she didn’t want it, so she’s surprised when Jaehyun sits her down at a table on the level above where they just were which has a beautiful view of the city, and asks if she wants anything to drink.

“I don’t have a bar, but I do have some pretty decent soft drinks. Do you like peach water? Morning rice?” Jaehyun asks, pulling a few bottles from his, _you're_ _assuming_ , fridge. “I guess they’re not all that decent. Sorry. I can order something if you want it.”

Eunmi shakes her head. “I’m okay right now. I only really drink tea, anyway.”

“Do you want some tea, then? I can make you tea.”

“I’m okay Jaehyun, seriously.” She looks away from him and to the panels of glass that show of the city of Seoul so well. They _must_ make a lot of money. “This view is amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever liked Seoul so much. You have great taste in houses.”

Jaehyun smiles at her comment and slips into the seat beside her. He’ll keep it to himself that he purchased a house like this so that one day a girl would say that to him. “I used to live in this small place not too far from Huam Dong. It wasn’t cheap but it wasn’t expensive either. I realised I had all this money and nothing to do with it. I decided to buy here after giving some money to a charity. I felt bad spending it all on myself.”

“You donated to charity?”

“Try not to sound so surprised,” Jaehyun says, “some of us are kind of nice, too. But not all of us. I wanted to have some good karma. At the time we were in the middle of the wars between EXO and Bangtan. I didn’t want all that money to go back to Doyoung, Johnny and Yuta if something happened to me.”

Eunmi might have gotten Jaehyun wrong. She doesn't like to admit to it, but it seems like she has done.

“Were things that serious during those times? Did you really think you’d die?” Eunmi asks.

“They were serious because Johnny sided us with them. Taeyong wanted to remain neutral. Somehow we ended up right in the middle and I was the only one who knew how to load a gun. That was the only reason Taeyong got me more people on my team. There’s lots of people under me, but not anyone as close as the ones you’ll meet. That includes you, too.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of me,” Eunmi tells him, “I mean, you barely know me.”

Jaehyun looks down to the table. Eunmi wonders if Jungwoo has any information on him. She’s interested. “Not many people would join a group like this for the sake of another person’s wellbeing. That’s pretty selfless. I’ve not met someone who’s that selfless before. You have actual feelings.”

“Can I ask you about Lucas?”

“Are you going to ask me if he’s single?” Jaehyun questions, raising his brow. Apparently, his weak spot is his jealousy too.

“I know he’s friends with Jungwoo. Why don’t you and Doyoung let them see each other?” she corrects him, remaining detached from his words. Why did they all think that relationships were all that made people. “Jungwoo wants to see him more often.”

Jaehyun furrows his brows. “I didn’t even know they were friends. Lucas doesn’t talk that much about his private life.”

“Do they know anything about your private life?”

“It’s not something we really talk about.”

“Maybe you all should become friends and talk about stuff like this, for the sake of your team and NCT,” Eunmi tells him. She notices the picture that Jaehyun has on the side of them all together. One for all, she guesses. “Take my word for it, friendships make things better. If anything ever happened, you’d have to make sure this group stayed together. If you’re not friends like that, it will be hard.”

 ***

“Did Jaehyun approach you?” Doyoung asks Eunmi, casually sitting beside her on the bench at the cafe he'd chosen for them. “He brought it up in a meeting we had. Said he'd heard good things about you. I told him you’d say no.”

Eunmi hums. Doyoung had bought her a white mocha even though she never asked him to, and she was enjoying the sweet taste too much to get annoyed at him. “He spoke to me about working for him.”

“And what did you say?”

“I asked what benefit I would have from it,” Eunmi tells Doyoung. He raises his eyebrow, cocking his head to the side. She interrupts him from questioning her intentions. “Are you worried I'll see what it's like to work under someone else and leave you high and dry, Doyoung?”

Doyoung shrugs. “I think it will surprise you how nice I am to work for. Not many other people would let their subordinates sleep in the same bed as them.”

“I'm sure Jaehyun will let me do more than that.”

Eunmi resists the smirk from hitting Doyoung’s weak spot. It's not Jaehyun, it's the jealousy. Jaehyun was just conveniently placed to bear the brunt of Eunmi making Doyoung regret ever bringing her into this.

Truthfully, she could care less for the both of them. Jaehyun and Doyoung could both be used to help her and Jeno and that's where it ended. Kind of. The sleeping in Doyoung’s bed and other stuff between them was something less appreciated. Doyoung initiated it. Not Eunmi.

“Will you work with him, then?” Doyoung asks her.

“I think it could be advantageous to you,” Eunmi replies. She smiles at him with a soft expression. “Jaehyun tells me that the benefit to me of working with him is having him. If I establish a relationship with him, I can easily tell you what work he's doing. You'll be a step ahead of him. Pick up on his mistakes before he can. His men aren't as smart as yours. They can kill someone without anyone knowing but they won’t be able to find out all their relatives and take them down too.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Eunmi leans back in her chair, bring her hands across her chest. She notices how Doyoung's stare becomes softer when he's intrigued. “I'm suggesting you use me to get a step ahead of Jaehyun and take over his men. Taeyong doesn't care about anyone but NCT. If Jaehyun is a weakness, he won't be kept around.”

“You’re doing this for me?” Doyoung questions.

“To benefit you,” Eunmi corrects, “Jaehyun can be of help to both of us, don’t you think?”

Doyoung hums. He picks up his bitter, black coffee and sips it slowly. He turns his attention to the scrape on her wrist which she’d gotten from helping Jeno out the other day. He narrows her eyes. “Did Jaehyun do something to you?”

“What do you mean?” Eunmi questions. Doyoung gestures to her wrist and she frowns. “No, it wasn’t Jaehyun. He’s not like that.”

“When you say things like that it makes me believe that you have attached some kind of emotion to him. Don’t believe that you know what anyone is like.”

“Should I not assume what you’re like then?”

Doyoung shakes his head. His eyes return to her wrist and then move towards to her hand. He stares for a moment, noticing her chipped nail polish and lack of jewellery. She tries to pull her hand away from him, but he holds her hand in his own to stop her from escaping his scrutiny.

“I think you’ve had me wrong from the day we met,” Doyoung states. He lets go of her own hand for a moment, taking a ring from his hand and placing it on her left ring finger with a smile. No, a grin. It’s not nice. “I want to benefit you. If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have helped Jeno and I wouldn’t have stuck around for you to… still be here.”

Eunmi admires the ring for a moment. She’s not sure on her feelings. Is she happy that he put a ring on her finger? Not… entirely. It’s not worth the hassle complaining about it but for some reason it gives her some security as well. Like she is _part_ of Doyoung.

“I’ve never dated anyone before, Eunmi,” Doyoung tells her. He looks down to his hands and sighs. “I don’t want to date anyone. It has too much risk. But you… I want to date you. I want to experience what it’s like to date you.”

She stays quiet. Doyoung is surprised.

“If the situation was different, Yoo Eunmi, I would date you. But I can’t. You’re a risk. I can’t have that kind of risk.”

Doyoung would never change his feelings. He’d never _have_ feelings.

Eunmi realises she’s just an asset after all.

***

Jaehyun watches her from across the table. He’s got the eyes of a wolf, the heart of one too. He cares too much, yet not at all. He can cut a man’s throat but touch her so gently that it’s barely even felt. Eunmi doesn’t know what to do. A liar or baggage?

“As long as we have ties to Yoo Kihyun, we’re fine,” Chenle says. For such a young kid, he’s smart. He can get into any computer he wants and Jisung can ruin it from the inside out. The dream team, Jaehyun calls them. “He runs the show for The Clan. It’s obvious. Hyunwoo is a bit of a pushover. He just looks mean. He doesn’t have anything on his history apart from animal adoption websites. He’s there for legacy, or something. I don’t know.”

Jisung agrees with a nod. “He’s clean, hyung.”

“Then who is it?” Yukhei questions.

“Another group?” Xiaojun suggests, “who stabs people in the back these days? It’s hardly ever effective.”

Jaehyun looks away from Eunmi, nodding gently. “You’re right. It’s unlikely to be someone we’ve dealt with before.”

“Does Doyoung know anything about them?” Yukhei asks.

They’re all too interested now.

Eunmi considers the consequences of letting her information spread. She won’t earn anything, maybe more from Jaehyun, but she’ll at worst lose Doyoung’s trust. Doyoung couldn’t do this without her, though. She found out more than any of his men did anyway.

“He asked me to look into it the other day. I agree, it’s not anyone we know of. ACE are frequents for a quick death. Bullet in the head, or the neck. I can only attribute it to Bangtan but they’re too weak to have done anything since what happened with EXO. Plus, it was Namjoon who would use a knife. He says he’s not interested in this world anymore. I would believe it’s a new group who are a threat.”

Jisung nods. “Especially to us. They’re quicker than us and impossible to find.”

“And there’s no clues to who it is?” Jaehyun questions, “no calls made, no texts or emails, this is completely quiet and under the radar?”

Eunmi and Chenle both nod their heads. Chenle pulls out his phone with a picture of something Eunmi can’t quite see. He shows it to Jaehyun who doesn’t look too pleased. “The guy they killed had all the CCTV wiped before the crime even happened. It’s like they installed some kind of software which would delete any information they wanted when they wanted it. The CCTV tapes from all over that part of town were wiped for the whole hour they were in the area. They… they know what they’re doing. It’s not like they killed someone for the fun of it. It was planned.”

“The guy’s name was Choi Minkyu. 37, some investment banker who had tried to get IKON on his side but instead faced redundancy for selling company secrets. He was hanging around IKON for a while, he had tried to get into Vixx before everything happened too. He went off the grid when Lee Hui set his men on him.”

“So it’s more likely that Bobby Kim had something to do with this than Bangtan,” Eunmi continues from Hendrey, “he has reason to, and resources to as well. He could have easily blacked out all the cameras there without anyone realising. He also has Song Yunhyeong to fix any problems that happen.”

“Though you don’t think it was Bobby himself?” Jaehyun asks.

Eunmi shakes her head, followed by Hendrey who follows suit. He’s the smart one who can put a picture together. That didn’t make him less capable with a weapon in his hands. Xiaojun was just better long distance than he was. Eunmi wonders if Hendrey has followed the same path she did when researching Minkyu.

“Is one of you going to tell me who you think it is then?”

Hendrey nods at Eunmi, allowing her to go first. She runs her fingers through her hair to push it back over her head before sighing. “From what I can see, I think that Bobby has hired someone external to take care of his problems.”

“Assassins,” Hendrey continues, “the kind who don’t come cheap but have no loyalties.”

“I think I know where you can get them, too,” Eunmi finishes.

Jaehyun has a dark look on his face, eyes fixated on her and lips pulled into a straight line. After a moment he looks around the room to the others and then gestures with a nod of his head towards the door that they should leave. They don’t need to be told twice, each of them leaving without another word or a complaint towards him. Hendrey is the last out, shutting the door behind him and leaving Eunmi in a room with who could have been her worst nightmare.

But he’s not, Jaehyun came close to a problem or a fear to Eunmi but he’s still not Doyoung. She doesn’t even think that she can compare them on the same level, given the way that they both act towards her and the people that serve them.

Maybe it’s the subtle looks he gives her when they’re walking together. Their hands brushing together, the coats and jumpers he gives her when it’s cold out and a place to stay when she’s scared. It’s impossible to be scared around him, apart from when it’s Doyoung on her trail.

Jaehyun may be a wolf, but Doyoung is a tiger.

“Have you told Doyoung yet?” Jaehyun asks. He places both his hands on the table with some caution. His knuckles are red, scraped and bloody. He doesn’t usually take things into his own hands, so Eunmi can’t attribute it to anyone.

“No,” she answers, “he doesn’t see it as a problem to him. They’re looking for people that cause problems and as far as he’s concerned the only name attached to NCT is yours, Johnny’s and Taeyong’s. If he can take it to Taeyong as a matter of security then Taeyong will dote on him and give him whatever he wants.”

“Do you think it’s a matter of security?”

“If Johnny really has taken Sehun in, then yes. I don’t believe everyone would just give up their hatred for him because he’s gone off the grid. Plus, no one really knows what happened to Junmyeon. They could think we took him in, too.”

Eunmi regrets her choice of we. She doesn’t want to be involved but she is, too far now. She wasn’t a drug runner, she did things for NCT that meant if they were going down so was she. Though she notices how Jaehyun reacts similarly, sighing. She considers it his reaction to the issue of EXO's extras.

“Why don’t you get Jeno to quit?”

“Quit?” Eunmi repeats. She’s caught off guard by his question. She thinks about it, only briefly, but the answer is simple. “Would you quit? Give this all up because someone asked you to?”

And Jaehyun stops to think too. He doesn’t take his eyes off her, watching each second move past them with ease, no care for his responsibilities.

_If you asked?_

“I would.”


	4. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> both jaehyun and doyoung have their feelings, albeit different, about eunmi. their relationships are starting to change, but not for the better it seems

“You know… fuck, baby, I want you.”

“To use me?” Eunmi asks again. “Do you want me to be some whore you never see again, or do you want me to please you like someone who actually enjoys your company and isn’t here for the money? You pick.”

 _Silence_.

“What is it you really want from me, Doyoung?”

His eyes are wider than usual. He’s no longer in control. His defences are lowered and she’s allowed to see the real Doyoung that cowers behind his dictating personality and stern appearance. He swallows, stuttering over his words before he shuts his mouth all together

Because she's straddling him.

Her thighs either side of his hips on the bed she knew she'd be in one day. She's pushing herself down, palming her hand across his cock that’s covered by the trousers he’s wearing. He wants them off so badly, she can tell by the look in his eyes. How he begs her to take them off, please him like he's always wanted. A man never loved by anyone else, who is so deadly afraid of people he barely lets a soul near him like this. Touch him? God no. How did he survive without her?

Would she give it to him? No.

What’s the point?

Men like Kim Doyoung deserve to be put in their place every once in a while.

With her free hand she pulls down one of the arms of the black dress he’d asked her to wear. That he’d admired her in the entire evening, watched as she held Jungwoo’s hand and pretended to be his girlfriend the entire evening. How he’d bit his lip as she got close to him and held back his words when she had brushed against him with the very intention to work him up and make him want this more than he wanted the information to secure his spot as leader one day.

It never seems to occur to Doyoung that the reason Eunmi is in this position is because of _him_. He asked her to work with Jungwoo, not _him_. He wanted her to pretend to be Jungwoo’s girlfriend in order to keep up the persona she'd created this entire time she had been working under him.

Yoo Eunmi is meant to be Park Sooyoung, a 20 year old who moved here from Jeju with her boyfriend, Koo Jaeho, who aspired to work for a big company in finance since he was _so_ good at maths. Doyoung created all of this. He gave her the passport to give her a new identity, the driving license and all, yet he seems _so offended_ that she was holding Jungwoo’s hand all night.

He wished it was him. Kim Doyoung wanted to be holding her hand, no fake identity to cover the two of them. At least, that’s what Eunmi would like to think of him. This is Doyoung though, who openly admitted he can’t have a relationship with her due to Eunmi being a risk to him. _What shit._

“Is it me?” she asks him. Eunmi exposes the hem of her bra beneath the dress, following with the other arm until the dress drops from her shoulders to pool around her hips. “Or is it to fuck me and prove to me that you’re the only person who can please me? Or, do you just want to use me?”

Doyoung stays silent. She takes her hand away from his groin, causing him to hiss silently, placing in on his chin to make sure he’s watching her every move. “You have to tell me, Doyoung. Or I can’t please you.”

“You know… fuck, baby, I want you.”

“To use me?” she asks again. She takes her other hand to his own, picking it up and bringing it to her panties. She drags his fingers down from the hem to between the thigh, slipping one of his fingers into her folds. He’s barely breathing, fixated on her and  _only_ her. Not that he ever wasn't. “Do you want me to be some whore you never see again, or do you want me to please you like someone who actually enjoys your company and isn’t here for the money? You pick.”

Doyoung breathes slowly, unable to control himself as he shuts his eyes from the feeling of her all over him. It’s frustrating, to have him  _so_ quiet the one time she wants to hear every word that he has to say. Doyoung suddenly forgets every word in his vocabulary.

So Eunmi helps him along, so she can get what shewant.

“ _Please_ Doyoung,” Eunmi says gently, moaning as the tip of his finger touches her clit. Does he even know what to do in a situation like this? She doesn't think that he does. He probably has girls back here to please him at that’s all. “I want to know. What do I mean to you?”

It becomes a flurry of emotions for the two of them. There’s a million thoughts going through her mind as she starts to feel Doyoung become aware of his actions and he takes _control_. Not a single thought doesn’t relate to him.

Do they care about each other?

Is there anything between the two of them?

Does Doyoung really only see her as his asset?

“You know the answer to that question, sweetheart,” Doyoung answers. He doesn’t need her help any more, he touches her sweet spots without a hint of hesitation, without the need for her to tell him what she wants. “Do you just want me to say it?”

Eunmi nods eagerly.

Doyoung isn’t so quick to give in. He may have been under her control, he may have acted like it was going to stay that way, but within a few moments he’s the one who has her right where he wants you.

Eunmi's hands are on his chest as he pleases her, his name falling from her lips as he shows her how he feels rather than tells her. His soft kiss on her chest to his fingertips on the curve of her thighs as he meets her at the same level. He would lay her down in a bed of roses but it would be clear that the petals would disappear and all that’s left behind is the thorns that torture her; scar her.

And she wonders why, no matter how much he touches her, he would never place those soft lips on her own and show her just what his words actually meant.

 _Sex can go a long way in a world like this_. A mantra set in Eunmi's head directly from Doyoung himself, asking her to use her body for his own gain. It’s no different for him. Not to use his own body _, Doyoung isn’t like that_ , to have her sacrifice her final ounce of dignity and sanity in order to keep her on his side.

He traces his tongue over her intimacy, dragging her hands to him, catching his hair in your fingers. He keeps her there, or she keeps him there, there’s no clear boundary as to who is in control. Her eyes flicker shut with each of his kitten licks, a cry of his name following him becoming more intense with each his actions. Sucking. _Biting_. She almost misses him tell her what she wanted all along.

“ _You mean everything to me_.”

***

“What’s that?” Lucas asks, pointing to her neck which had an unfortunate reminder of the previous actions on it.

The bruise, _marking_ , had started to fade now and all Eunmi could do was pray that it wouldn’t be noticed by anyone. She hadn’t thought about being stuck on an operation with Lucas and Jaehyun, though; the two most observant people she had ever known.

It wasn’t the mark itself that frustrated her. It was the meaning behind it. How close she was to showing Doyoung that he couldn’t treat her like you were one of the people he fucks and forgets, leave her for dead on the streets without another guess about her. That Doyoung had managed to infiltrate the final defences she put up with the tips of his fingers and his sweet, _sour_ words.

“Nothing.” She pulls her scarf further up her neck and attempt to cover anything that could be seen. “Who are we looking for?”

Lucas rolls his eyes and cocks his head to the side, ignoring the question she'd asked him. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Then who gave you that?” Lucas questions. He tries to touch her scarf but she's able to move out of the way just in time to avoid him exposing the entire string of what Doyoung had left her to deal with. “Was it one of Doyoung’s team? Was it Doyoung?”

Eunmi ignores his question, leaning back in her seat and concentrating back on the train station platforms that they were meant to be focused on. Jaehyun brought her and Lucas here to find someone who had supposedly hired the assassins and tail them back to whatever organisation they come from.

Lucas, obviously annoyed with her lack of an answer, follows suit and sits back in his seat to copy her actions. He pulls up his face mask and pulls down his hat, anonymising himself from anyone who looked in his direction. “Don’t tell Jaehyun, whatever the answer is.”

“Don’t tell Jaehyun what?”

Surprised by his presence, she turns to meet the eyes of the very man with three cups of hot drinks in his hands. He raises a brow at the pair of them, emotionless to everything else.

“That I have no idea who we’re looking for,” Eunmi covers, giving him an apologetic smile, “I didn’t get a chance to ask Chenle for photos. I was with Kun all night.”

Jaehyun hums, passing her one of the three cups and then Lucas the other. He takes a seat beside her, so all three of them are looking out to where anyone boarding the trains and getting off of them would have to be. “I asked Doyoung to clear your schedule last night. Are you okay to be here? You can sleep if you’re tired.”

“I don’t get that treatment,” Lucas states.

“You don’t have Doyoung forcing you to work twenty-four hours a day,” Jaehyun defends, narrowing his eyes at his junior. He looks back to Eunmi, meeting her eyes with the softest of smiles. “I don’t want to overwork you. If you’re tired, you can sleep at mine.”

She denies his offer with a shake of her head. She sips the drink slowly and realises that he’s made it exactly how she said she liked it about three weeks ago. “I’m fine. This is more important to me.”

 _You’re more important to me_. But for what reason?

To break Doyoung? It sounded to be like that.

She's caught staring at Jaehyun with apologetic eyes, met only with sympathy and affection from the only one of these leaders who has it in them to _feel_. Jaehyun makes it clear. Remembering how she likes her coffee is one thing, but her needs over his own was almost foreign to someone with a rank in NCT.

To tell her that she can rest instead of do his work for him?

To sit in a freezing cold train station with his team to help them out?

There’s something different about Jung Jaehyun.

“We’re looking for this kid named Koo Junhoe,” Lucas tells her. He passes Eunmi his phone with a CCTV picture of a masked man with dark eyes and strong features. He looks like he’s around the same age as Jaehyun, maybe a little older. “He’s under Bobby Kim. Just came back from working in Japan with Kim Jinhwan. The two usually operate over there but recently Bobby’s been bringing his men back here. Any idea why?”

“He’s worried about the people he can trust. He’s getting rid of people that he’s had working for him because information leaked,” Eunmi answers.

“To ACE, of all people.” Jaehyun pushes his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose and sneaks a look around the train station to see if anyone is nearby. “ACE and IKON are going to war. But why won’t they use the assassins on each other? I don’t understand it.”

A man on the other side of the gates attracts Eunmi's attention. He’s older, in his fifties maybe, with a long coat on and a disposition that screams devil’s advocate. He doesn’t care about anything, just his own intentions and needs. He neglects to notice the mother with two children behind him or elderly lady who’s waiting to get past.

“What if it’s just for show?” she says, turning to Jaehyun.

He frowns, lips pressed into a straight line. “What do you mean?”

“What if this isn’t what’s happening at all. Bobby and Hanbin aren’t stupid, they know you’re watching then. I remember what Junhee was like in school too. He wanted everything to himself, he would do anything to get what he wanted. It doesn’t matter who he sacrificed. Why wouldn’t he be using these assassin’s on IKON? He wouldn’t use them if he was tied to them in some way. What if this is them getting back at NCT for siding with EXO?”

“You think they’re working together?” Lucas asks. Eunmi nods once before looking back to Jaehyun. He looks as if he’s processing it in his mind, working through all the information she's told him instead of telling Doyoung. “Why would they do that? Junhee and Bobby are worst enemies. They’ve hated each other since YG split.”

“They’re distracting us from what they’re actually doing,” Jaehyun states.

***

Doyoung keeps his hand on Eunmi's thigh as she tries to shuffle away from his touch. _From him_. He doesn’t see that she's uncomfortable until she places her hand on his, grasping all of his attention away from the man who was speaking, and move it to the chair. It’s because of that that he doesn’t speak to her for the rest of the night. Well, just until they get to the room that is.

He’d taken the _last_ operation they'd been on together, where she had pretended to date Jungwoo, and run with it. She's no longer Sooyoung but Doyoung’s girlfriend who he barely speaks to because she didn’t want his hand over her thigh. Petty. Stupid. He’s so many things but what she wanted him to be.

It was disappointing that she actually tried with him. To make _this_ work. Now what is she stuck with?

Doyoung sitting across from her at the bar, the opposite side so he can look directly at her, taking back shots of whiskey like it was water and showing her that he was _mad_. It makes her question just how his mind works. Does he not see that he causes this? That if Doyoung would have stepped up and realised that everything he did, everything he said, _everything_ causes her to become more distant to him than before.

But Eunmi can’t fault Doyoung. He won’t allow her to tell him that he did something wrong.

 _I’m Kim Doyoung. Do you think I would be where I am today if I would have made mistakes_.

Well, yes, Doyoung, your mistakes are exactly what you got whilst you were here.

Because one night alone at a bar, staring into the eyes of someone who acts like they love and hate you at the same time, can bring a lot of thoughts to someone’s mind. Starting with the thought of _death_.

No, Eunmidoesn't want to die. Why die in this position? Why wish her life away when she's so close to the top of NCT? Everything is Doyoung’s hands is in hers too. All that he tells her, his hatred for Johnny, his hatred for _NCT_ , it all leads to one result that puts her in a better position than before. Why does she need Doyoung? To look after Jeno. What if she looked after Jeno?

Better yet, what if Eunmi was Doyoung?

It’s not the power getting to her head. It’s the thought of _Kim Doyoung_. To see him crumble beneath her and become nothing. A thought that passes every so often. Dust that she steps on when she's walking down the aisle to someone who cares. Someone who isn’t Doyoung. _I can’t date you_. How can you imagine to marry me, Kim Doyoung?

Johnny said it himself. She's smarter than him. She knows more than he does. Maybe it’s working with more than half of NCT that means she knows so much more, but there’s definitely ignorance in it too. If Doyoung opened his damn eyes he’d see so much more.

He’d see Jaehyun.

He’d see NCT.

He’d see _her_.

“You don’t want to talk to me, sweetheart?”

She meets Doyoung’s eyes from where he watches her, leant against the doorframe with his suit still immaculate and stare piercing through her very soul that he wanted so badly. He holds her gaze for a moment until she looks down to her shoes and continue to undo the buckles on them.

“I understand,” Doyoung says. He pulls the tie from his neck and holds it in his hands, approaching her with caution. When he’s directly in front of her, he stops. “Sometimes we don’t need to talk.”

He reaches down to grasp her hand. His touch is gentle at first, fingers intertwined with her own as he crouches down to her level. He’s so close to her. Mere inches that separate her lips from his and the more she stares at him, the more she wishes she could just _kiss him_. Show him that he’s missing out on so much. A risk? There’s not one if they're in love.

“But sometimes we do,” Doyoung finishes, grasping her chin with his other hand. She tries to look away from him but he keeps her in place and narrows his gaze at her. He’s not gentle anymore. “How can you expect people to believe we are dating after that?”

“They’d believe we were dating if we were dating.”

Doyoung raises his brow at her answer. He loosens his grip, on her hand that is, moving closer to her once again. “If we _were_ dating?”

“What is stopping that from happening?” she asks, “why can’t you date me? Are you scared of me? Of what it would be like to have me in your life?”

“I don’t date people.”

“Then why did you come here to pretend to date me? Jungwoo was meant to come. Why did you take his place and say you were my boyfriend?”

Doyoung fails to reply. He lets go of her chin and hands, standing and walking away from her and to the bathroom. She scoffs, loud enough for him to hear her from the bathroom with the door locked as he has it. The dress he asked her to wear is discarded to the suitcase she'd brought, as is all the jewellery he brought for her, and the shoes too.

And as she sits on the bed, clad only in the underwear Doyoung gave to her as he kissed her shoulder and said how beautiful she would look in it, she wonders how hard it would be to jump out of the window opposite to her.

Six floors is dangerous, but so is staying the night.

Maybe it’s the wine on an empty stomach, but her phone ends up in her hand and she takes a picture of her bare collar bone with the bra strap pushed down, lips showing with the dark red lipstick Doyoung had chosen too. If anything, she looked attractive, and if Doyoung wouldn’t appreciate that then someone would.

_To: Jaehyun_

_What do you think?_

At the very least Jaehyun would appreciate it. His stance, the one he puts on to other people to show that he’s the man behind everyone that NCT has killed and left for dead in the cruel streets of Seoul, it has so many cracks. He shows it to her. Not to Lucas, not to any of the others he’s ever been with.

Jaehyun has feelings, and _god_ is she attaching herself to them.

_From: Jaehyun_

_You’re so beautiful._

“For me?”

Doyoung’s voice fills the silent room, directing every piece of attention towards him. His shirt is unbuttoned three from the top and his sleeves are rolled up. He’s splashed some water on his face, though he still has a pink blush over his _oh so emotionless_ face. He’s directing her to the tent in his pants at the sight _, thought_ , of Yoo Eunmi.

He walks forward, stopping two feet or so from the bed. A quick escape to be made if she defies him once again. Talk back to him and prove that every word he says is tainted with falsehood. “I want you, so badly.”

_You think he would need you, though?_

“Not tonight,” Eunmi answers, pushing her hair back behind your ears, “I’m tired.”

_You’d give the same answer if it was Jaehyun asking you?_

“What’s wrong with you?”

_You can’t get the thought of Jaehyun out of your mind?_

“I’m tired, Doyoung. I’ve slept three hours in the past four days.” She stands from the bed and walks straight past him, picking up one of the hoodies on the floor without a care for whose it could be. It’s her five minutes in the bathroom. She turns her back to Doyoung before she pushes the door open and makes sure to lock it behind her. “If you don’t date people, don’t expect to have sex with them either.”

He says something she can’t make out, the door muffling his voice and dimmed lights causing the atmosphere to change. It’s calm. For the first time since she joined NCT, she's not worried about what’s on the other side of the door. _Doyoung will protect you? He’s too scared not to_.

She turns the taps for the bath, squeezing some of the hotel-provided bath soap into the pooling water. The smell of grapefruit and lemon hits her like the sound of the taps takes over her senses, alluding her to the idea that the only thing that matters to her is what’s in the room at that very moment. Herself, and the protection of Jeno that comes with it.

Protect yourself. Protect Jeno. Protect what matters to you.

_To: Jaehyun_

_Want to see more?_

The delayed text is a result of the disassociating Eunmi is facing, sitting on the cold floor with her back against the door as she stares at Jaehyun’s words. _You’re so beautiful_. _I’d give this up. Sleep if you’re tired_. There was so many thoughts of bringing down Doyoung that you’d not considered empowering Jaehyun. Empowering each other.

And maybe he meant nothing to her before, but there’s something else to do with it. Those _fucking_ emotions that send Doyoung into a powerless spiral but bring Jaehyun everything he’s ever needed. ACE and IKON can work together, Eunmi and Jaehyun can tear apart NCT from its very core.

_From: Jaehyun_

_I want all of you._

***

The sun shines down on Eunmi from the clouded skies above, bringing a warm feeling to her skin. She embraces the feeling of it, soaking up the soft rays that made it through the bitter wind that stops and starts every few minutes. It would make her think that somewhere Doyoung is throwing a fit and the whole world is reacting to it. Why is he throwing a fit?

“They only had lychee,” Jaehyun says, sitting down next to her on the bench that overlooks the Han River. He passes her a straw from his pocket and then the cup of bubble tea, too. “But, they had honeydew popping pearls. Have you ever seen them before? I wanted to try some.”

Eunmi smiles gratefully as she takes the bubble tea and carefully tries push the straw through the plastic lid. She's half-assing it, Jaehyun can tell. “Thank you. I haven’t had lychee in ages.”

“Are you okay?” Jaehyun asks her. He takes the straw from Eunmi and does the job for her. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

Jaehyun doesn’t answer. He realises there’s more to it, though it never crosses his mind that he should try to force her into working under him. He starts to come up with a plan as to how he’ll hide her from Doyoung, all of NCT for that matter. That if they suspect him he’ll take her to America and they'll live under different names.

“Doyoung expects too much from me. He wants me to go with Kun to this event tomorrow and suck some guy off to get their business card. Do I want that for the rest of my life? No. I don’t want to touch some guy who hasn’t ever been to a gym and thinks ramen is a nutritious meal. He’s pissed and he’s taking it out on me.”

Jaehyun frowns, unhappy with the task she's been asked to do, too. He brushes some hair that’s caught in her earrings from her face. “I’ll tell him I already have you working on something for me. Lucas will cover for you. We can go to Busan together and you can forget about him for a few days.”

“I don’t expect you to do that for me, Jaehyun.”

“But I want to do it to help you.” He brings his arm around Eunmi's shoulders and pulls her into his chest. She feels so lifeless that she barely even feels his touch. “This is my fault.”

She shakes her head against his chest. “He’s mad at me for-”

“-for spending so much time with me. For not being with him all the time. For not giving into everything he tells you and standing up for what you believe in. He told me to stop working with you last week. He said to Taeyong that he’ll kill me if I try to take you away from him. This is my fault for wanting you under me, too. But if I could ask you to work for me again, I would. So let me help you out and get him off your case, at the very least.”

Jaehyun’s embrace is warm. His heat starts to spread to Eunmi as he keeps her close to him and strokes his hand over her hair. She feels her eyes begin to close and she realises that she trusts Jaehyun. She's tired, she has a million thoughts running through her head and she still can trust Jaehyun to keep her safe when she's so _open_. Doyoung take her to the Han River? It’s a _risk_.

Stop thinking about Doyoung.

“Is that why you wanted to talk to me?” Jaehyun asks.

Eunmi opens her eyes slowly, looking up to meet his soft gaze. His hair is messy but tucked under the hat that she's seen him in a few times before, the red around his eyes showing that he’s not slept too much either. She brings her fingertips to his cheeks and runs them over his skin. _God_ , he’s _so_ warm.

“Something like that,” she answers, not breaking away from his eyes. Eunmi brings her thumb to his bottom lip, brushing the dry skin before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his lips. It’s only short, barely a few seconds pass before she pulls away from him with the taste of the honeydew and strawberry, mixed with his cherry lip balm, burning it’s way into her memory to last for the rest of her days. He meets her with wide eyes and pink ears. “I guess that talking wasn’t the right word.”

And Eunmi expects him to leave it there _._

Though Jaehyun has always surprised her, and she should have expected him to return her kiss a few moments later when it finally dawned on him that _she_ kissed _him_. There was no more unreturned feelings running through his head and a _will she won’t she_ narrative he experienced every time he got close to her.

His hands cup her cheeks, holding her as close to him as he can. His heart is racing just as quickly as her own would have been if the situation made a little more sense. The very act of being so close to one another leaves Jaehyun’s mind begging him to never stop, to do this every minute of every day until he finds the meaning behind all of the emotions he’s feelings for her.

But _Eunmi_. Where does it leave her? A taste of what it’s like to be apart from Doyoung and forget whatever control he has over her, _her_ _body_ , and escape to a reality she had wanted so badly.

It makes her realise that feelings change.

 _I want all of you_ was more than just her body. It was her mind, her soul too. Jaehyun didn’t want what Doyoung had asked for this whole time. He wanted what Doyoung was scared of.

God, did Eunmi need him too.

***

“I’m in Busan,” she tells Doyoung over the phone, “Jaehyun told you.”

Doyoung doesn’t sound pleased. He mumbles something under his breath, using the tone he usually has when he speaks to Kun, before shutting himself in another room. “I told you we had important things to do today. This will compromise our entire plan.”

“You can get his business cards from the waitress he’s served by. Always gives her one when he tips her.”

“That wasn’t the plan that I had,” Doyoung says, tone harsh enough to destroy all ounces of living in the vicinity between them, “how can you expect me to help you out when you can’t do one thing that I ask of you?”

Eunmi looks over to Jaehyun who is taking a call on the other side of the room. She knows that it’s either Xiaojun or Hendery telling him about who they found today. He’s too concentrated to notice she's on the phone, too. “What are you going to do about it, Doyoung? Kill Jaehyun?”

“I’ve considered.”

“And what did Taeyong say about it? Did he tell you to get over yourself?” she asks. Maybe Eunmi is pushing her luck with what Doyoung will and _can_ do to her. “Come on, Doyoung. Do you think that killing Jaehyun will get you anywhere? You said it yourself that Johnny wanted me to work with him. Or, should I approach Yuta and move to whatever country he needs me in. I heard Taeyong wants to export some things from France. _Vous êtes bête_.”

Doyoung falls silent and she can only hear his breathing through the phone line. She's glad to have picked up on this personality trait, _fault_ , before any of the others. Something to be used against him whenever she needed Doyoung to _shut up_.

Eunmi expects to hear more from him, at least a fuck you before he goes and finishes whatever he wanted your help on. He ends the call without another word though, leaving her to stare at the phone screen and wonder just what was going through his head.

Would she leave him for Jaehyun? Leave him was ambiguous. Side with Jaehyun over him?

Or would Doyoung try to think ahead of himself. Considering that she had told him that you would use Jaehyung to her own and his advantage, Doyoung could easily come to the conclusion that she is using Jaehyun in order to get what she needed. Maybe she is. There’s a hint of a selfish desire to have her own life back each time she smiles at Jaehyun, but there’s an air of feelings with every word and a touch of love in each kiss.

Eunmi had taken Jaehyun up on his offer to go to Busan so she could talk to him. Or, she planned to tell him everything when she was on the way here but he had spent the whole time assisting Chenle with some software and he’d been getting calls for the past hour. It was a sign from the universe to keep it back from him and wait to tell Jaehyun. He might not trust her. Or, he may not believe that the two of the them are on the same page yet.

Who is she kidding, Jaehyun is as smitten as a child around a kitten.

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun tells her, sitting beside Eunmi on the bed as he tosses his phone to the other end. “I promise you, no more phone calls. No more NCT. I’m all yours for the rest of the night and we can do whatever you want.”

Her chest fills with uneasiness as she takes a small step into the freedom she's wanted since she had started. She looks down to the phone in her hand. No messages from Doyoung. She banishes her phone to be with Jaehyun’s, too. “I just want to do nothing.”

“Nothing it is then,” Jaehyun states, laying down against the pillows and pulling her down with him. He pulls her closer to him so they're both laying as one. “I thought tomorrow we could explore. I’ve never been to Busan before.”

“Me neither,” Eunmi answers.

“Great, we can get lost together and forget about the real world for ten minutes.”

Jaehyun has the spirit of someone half his age. He must forget that his name is in flashing lights for criminals and the police alike, both wanting him six feet under with extra nails in the coffin. She'd never have guessed that _this_ Jaehyun is the same Jaehyun who put a bullet in Park Jimin’s head to make sure that EXO didn’t betray them.

Though, she'd soon know that he did the exact same to Kim Jongdae when he found out they were doing exactly that.

“I know Doyoung is hard to handle. Believe me, I’ve wanted him dead since the first time I met him. But you just need to focus on what matters.”

“How did you meet?” she asks him.

Jaehyun laughs at the thought. He runs his fingers back through his hair as he remembers it down to what he was wearing that same day. “Johnny wanted to introduce me. We got along at first. I’m pretty sure he saw some of himself in me. We sat at a table in Johnny’s house and discussed the best way to deal with The Clan since at the time, Kihyun and Wonho were on a killing spree of anyone they could find. We had different ways to approach it and he didn’t like being wrong.”

“Sounds like Doyoung.”

“He won’t ever be any different, you know that.” Jaehyun brings his hand to her own, bringing it to his lips as he presses a single kiss to the back of her hand. “You have me on your side. You have Lucas, Chenle, Jisung, Hendery and Xiaojun, too. I’ll- We’ll do anything to help you out. I’m sure that Kun, Taeil and Jungwoo feel the exact same.”

Eunmi thinks about it for a moment. Kun, Taeil and Jungwoo helping her out? It wouldn’t be too far off the mark. They’re scared of Doyoung but what if he wasn’t there. She holds onto Jaehyun’s hand and make sure he takes every one of her words with their true meaning. “If Johnny had to pick one of you, who would it be?”

“Pick one of us?” Jaehyun repeats.

“You or Doyoung. Who would he support?”

Jaehyun hesitates to answer. His body freezes as though he really doesn’t have an answer to give to her. He’s never had to think about Johnny picking one side of NCT but he knows that Johnny knows him, _likes him_ better. Doyoung is his level though. There’s no clear answer. Though he can’t look her in the eyes and not give her the words she wants to hear.

It was time to ask for another opinion.

***

“Are you sure?” Jeno asks Eunmi, stopping her from knocking on the metal plated door in front of her. He holds her hand just an inch from the door and when he stops her, all the problems with what she's about to do run through her head. “The last time you saw Johnny he had a knife. Are you sure you want to talk to him?”

She braves a nod, taking her fist from Jeno’s grasp. “He knows what Doyoung would do if something happened to me. Plus, you’ll be there.”

“Me being there doesn’t-”

Jeno is cut off by Eunmi firmly knocking on the door and taking a step back to wait for Johnny to answer. The more she thinks about this, the worse of an idea it becomes. So she combats it by not thinking about the consequences and thinking about _her_.

There’s no words from Johnny, so she decides to push the door open and deal with his wrath when needed. Eunmi is sure that he won’t be so mad when he finds out why she's here. Power hungry men who find out what other people have to say about them only become worse with time.

Especially when they’re sitting on top of an empire with every drug under the sun and a million dollars cash under their mattress.

Eunmi is met with Johnny’s curious eyes when he looks up from the desk he’s sat at. He doesn’t get mad, he barely even flinches at her shutting the door, before offering her and Jeno a smile and pointing to the seats opposite to him. “Nice to see you again. I was wondering if we would ever get another chance to talk.”

“I’m here to tell you something,” she answers, watching as Jeno takes a seat.

“Not one to sit down? Okay.” Johnny stands, moving himself to the other side of the desk and leaning on the edge, so he was closer to her than you wished for him to be. “I don’t play kiss and tell anymore. I don’t want to hear how Doyoung fucked you and got rid of you because he didn’t cum quick enough.”

Eunmi hums, crossing your arms over your chest. “This involves you, not me.”

“Me?”

“Doyoung tells me a lot when we’re together. He told me about what happened between you and Taeil. Heavy stuff that is. Who would have guessed that you’d have threatened Taeil over something as stupid as a gram of cocaine?”

Johnny bites his tongue. He places his hands in his pockets and shakes his hair from his eyes. “You have my attention. What do you need to tell me?”

“The situation with the assassins. Doyoung is using it to his advantage.” Eunmi nods to Jeno who’s holding a folder filled with CCTV photographs she'd spent the weekend pulling with Jaehyun and Chenle. “Doyoung told me that he wants to take Taeyong’s position. I had a long think about it and realised that he would need someone to help him do that. Or… no one to stop him.”

Johnny holds her gaze for a moment then turns his attention to the folder. He takes it from Jeno’s hands and glances through it. His face contorts between confusion and anger, though Eunmi is not sure who at. She knows Jeno has a gun on him somewhere but she's not sure whether he would use it.

“I thought that it may have been an overreaction but I remembered that he’d had me work with Jaehyun all this time. He knows what Jaehyun is doing and where he’s going because of me. What better way to keep tabs on someone without them knowing?”

Johnny glances up to her with a stern look in his eyes. “You can’t prove this.”

“He sent Jungwoo to Incheon when I told him that I would be joining Jaehyun, Xiaojun and Hendery there. He did the same with Anyang and Pyeongchang. It’s safe to say that he wants to know Jaehyun’s location at all times. With you… well, you ask what he’s done.”

“He’s approached you?” Johnny asks, turning to Jeno.

“He sent Taeil to Jaemin’s last drop and had Kun tail me to a building he thinks you’re in right now,” Jeno answers. He appears to be disappointed that he’s let Johnny down. “Eunmi got Chenle to bug their phones. He told Kun that he’d send the people he knows on Kun’s family if he didn’t do what he said. They don’t want to help him on this but he’s forcing them to do it, whatever it is.”

Jeno’s almost a good of a liar as she is. Eunmi guesses that he thinks it could be true, that Doyoung has an extensive plan on how he’s going to overthrow the entirety of NCT without anyone finding out. It wasn’t hard for her to figure something out, as far fetched as it was to get Johnny on her side. Jeno and Johnny could take the same path to reasoning as to why wanted Doyoung wanted them dead in a ditch, as long as they believed it would happen if they didn’t do anything.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing,” she answers, watching as Johnny places the papers onto the tray of powers on his desks. Eunmi fights the need to feel joy. “I need to know I can count on you when the time is right.”

Johnny is still for a moment. He watches her carefully for a few seconds before smiling to himself. “You took my words and run with them. You believed what I said. An eye for an eye.”

***

“Don’t you want me?”

Jaehyun’s voice is soft. His arm is draped softly over her waist, the covers meaning that skin to skin contact is minimal. Eunmi had kept it that way for as long as she could, though she knew Jaehyun wants more.

She would feel the same, if it wasn’t for Doyoung.

“You can say no,” Jaehyun says. He moves closer to her and buries his face into the crook of her neck. “I like you. You’re someone I can talk to. I don’t feel like in two minutes you’re going to fuck off and get me arrested. I like talking to you.”

Eunmi hums. “It’s not as easy as liking you back.”

“I know, you have Doyoung. But he doesn’t care about you. Don’t try to tell me he does. He would throw you under the bus if he had to. He doesn’t protect anyone he cares about. Fuck, he’s using you because he knows you need someone to look after Jeno.”

“What are you suggesting I do, Jaehyun?” she turns slightly so she's facing him. He’s so beautiful. The way the light hits his face and defines his contours, his eyes shining and lips puckered. He no longer looks like the hardened criminal who would kill someone for looking at him the wrong way. “You want to help Jeno?”

Jaehyun stays quiet for a moment. He brings his fingertips to her lips and brushes over the skin. “I don’t have the authority to step in with Johnny. He’s my senior, or whatever. Taeyong will have me thrown to the streets.”

“When I know Jeno is okay under Johnny, I’ll stop working with Doyoung.”

“What if you don’t tell him,” Jaehyun suggests. He sits up a little, resting his head on his hand which is propped up by his elbow. “Doyoung knows you and I are working together for whatever reason. He knows you’re with me all the time. He doesn’t have to know that there’s anything going on between us.”

Eunmi stays silent. She notices the scars on Jaehyun’s face, likely to be from different knives he’s been threatened with. There’s a long line across his neck which has started to fade a little. She counts the scars as she refrains from answering a question that led her to a dance with the devil.

 _Between us._ Jaehyun and Eunmi were no better than the average crime partners who used each other for what they needed. At least, it started that way. Jaehyun would have his hands all over her and she'd have extra money coming in to lend to Jeno if Johnny ever asked how well his sales were going. It changed, though. Her relationship warped into soft kisses and touches, laying in bed together and telling each other their deepest, darkest secrets.

No one else knows how many people Jaehyun has killed.

No one else knows how many people he’s buried alive to please Taeyong.

No one else knows that Jaehyun, unlike Johnny, Yuta and most importantly Doyoung, is capable of caring about someone.

“Do you want me?”

“How can you ask me that?” Jaehyun laughs out of nerves. “At first I wanted you. You’re not like the others who try their luck with me. The girls who suck your dick and move on to whoever has more power. God, you’re the first girl who hasn’t left me for Johnny because he’s got more money. I need you. I can’t live my life without knowing you’ll be the one waiting for me at the end of it.”

Eunmi's eyes start to sting and she bites the inside of her lip. She wants to kiss him but she can’t because she knows her mind will warp it into Doyoung. She wants it _so_ badly to be Kim Doyoung that she'll lie to Jaehyun’s face about it.

Or she doesn't lie at all.

She can tell him.

“Doyoung doesn’t see me as anything more than an asset. You’re right.”

Jaehyun nods. He seems expectant that she'll confess to him, something if not her love for him. “Taeyong can’t stop me from interfering with Doyoung. Anything you want, I can do it. I can give it to you.”

“Can you kill him?”

Jaehyun appears to have missed the question. His emotionless stare rattles Eunmi to the bone. Yet he declines an answer.

“I want you to stab him in the back. I don’t want to be his. I want to be yours. I want to work with you and come home to you every day. I want feelings. I want… emotion.”

Jaehyun never needed much convincing. He’s madly in love. He doesn’t need an excuse more valid than the girl he loves to have a knife in someone’s back. Especially Kim Doyoung.

“I want _you_.”


	5. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a plan coming into action, though everyone is starting to have their doubts about how successful it will be. luckily, her once worst nightmare is always there to help

“Sweetheart, do you want anything?”

Doyoung’s voice calls through the coffee shop Eunmi has barricaded herself in over the fears of Doyoung’s attachment becoming far too much for her to handle. He looks back to her with a sickening smile filled with false truths and a bad intention that’s directed at Eunmi and _only_ Eunmi. A pawn in his game, what a good way to phrase it. Just as she had a plan, he had one too. Smarter than him she may have been, but they weren’t all too different at heart.

She shakes her head, allowing him to order whatever bitter drink can satisfy him today before he’ll return to her to _talk._ Something he does a lot of without all much context. He would have failed any exam he took. Too much of his own opinion in anything he ever says, never enough consideration for anything, _anyone_ else. If only he took into account that there was a whole other world that existed outside of _him._

But this is still Kim Doyoung, and it’s impossible for him to fathome a world that didn’t revolve around him. She's sure that’s why he didn’t find any enjoyment in the things that the rest of the people she knew liked. Can’t put how he sees everything into perspective?

Consider _The Elder Scrolls_. Let’s start somewhere easy. You're playing as the Nerevarine from _Morrowind_ , you’re immersed in the lore that surrounds such an interesting game and you’re intrigued just a little more. A dive into some books and you learn of the creation stories. Anu and Padomay, to Anui-El and Sithis, and Auriel and Lorkhan. You’re wrapping your head around the creation of Nirn and the Mer, you’re understanding that there’s a race called the Dwemer and you’ll be against Dagoth Ur in this battle. You realise that there’s the state of CHIM which means you’ve defied the laws of oblivion. Well, who is Doyoung?

He created that world and everything in it, from love to chaos and right back to death itself.

But all he could talk about now was _coffee_.

“You look nice today,” Doyoung comments, taking his seat beside Eunmi. He places his coffee on the side before taking another look at her. “I like that skirt. Did you wear it for me?”

She resists the urge to tell him that it’s actually because the last time she wore the short, black leather skirt with these shoes and this tee, Jaehyun was especially quiet and _tried_ to hide how much he loved it on her. “Sure. Thought you would be into it.”

“I am. Leather looks good on you. Though I imagine it in other places, to be honest with you.”

“Like where?” She asks, genuinely curious.

“Your hands, for starters.” Doyoung leans forward to pick up his coffee and drinks a small amount without leaving her gaze. “Your ankles. Everything tied to the bed posts so you have to let me do whatever I want to you. Around your thighs, that would be beautiful, don’t you think?”

The thought sends Eunmi to the depths of her imagination. She hadn’t considered him doing that before. Now that she thinks about it, she's intrigued to try it. Not with him, though.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Doyoung states, offended by her lack of reply.

“I thought your ties would be better,” she replies, “though I thought we were here to discuss the man you think is behind the murders recently?”

Doyoung hums. “That was before I got here. Now that I’m here, I want to talk about you. _Us._ ”

“Of course.”

There’s a short pause, Doyoung deciding where he wants to take the conversation. He could rile her up with his words in this public place, that would send him to a corner of oblivion he didn’t want to be in, or he could confront an issue that had been on his mind for a while. _Eenie, meenie, minnie, mo._

“You and Jaehyun,” Doyoung states, turning his chair to her. He cocks his head to the side as if she's supposed to know the whole meaning behind his words.

“Yes?” She replies, matching his inquisitive eyes. “What about Jaehyun and I?”

“What does he make you do?”

Eunmi raises her eyebrow. “As in what work?”

“What else?”

“I was just asking.” There’s a thought that pops up in her head which tells Eunmi to tell Doyoung that Jaehyun let’s her sleep when she's tired and take his jackets when she's cold. She shakes the thought from her mind. “He has me working on finding some men for him with Hendery. There was one time when I went to follow someone around with Yukhei. Nothing much else.”

Doyoung nods twice, bringing his hand to his chin and resting his face in his palm. “It’s funny, because I could have sworn I got some information that you and Jaehyun spend a lot of time together.”

Eunmi's mind immediately jumps to who could have released that kind of information, but she realises that it could have even anyone from Moon Taeil to Park Jimin in his coffin 6 feet under. Of course she spent the majority of her time with Jaehyun, though she didn’t think it was too obvious. There must have been a time he was referring to.

“When he picked me up to introduce me to Hendery?”

“When he took you to Busan,” Doyoung comments. He eyes the ring of his that still sits on Eunmi's finger, then the watch that has now been placed on her wrist from his junior. He laughs to himself. “I was planning to take you there myself.”

“I’ve never been to Jeju,” she tells him.

“Would you like me to take you to Jeju?”

 _Not in a million years._ “Depends what we will be doing.”

“A vacation,” Doyoung answers, pulling his phone from his top pocket. He replies a message before turning back to her with what appears to be a forced smile. Does he know he’s losing her? The possibility is there. “Do you want to go now?”

“Now?”

Doyoung nods.

“I haven’t packed.” Eunmi's panicked gaze must bring some pleasure to him. “I don’t even have a phone charger on me.”

“I’ll buy you a new one when we get there. Clothes too. Or, you just wear mine? I like that idea better.”

She can tell by the way that he looks at her like she's no more than a mouse is to an eagle who hasn’t eaten for a day, that she's not getting out of going with him for whatever he wanted. Be it her or a confession.

***

Jaehyun’s voice through the phone brings Eunmi some kind of joy, the low mumbling since he was _trying_ to fall asleep being music to her ears as she sits on the balcony and enjoys the view of the ocean. She prefers it to the boy inside's voice, his constant rambling due to the seven odd glasses of whiskey he’s been downing being his demise and sending him straight to bed. She'd escaped him tonight, with the cost of a night in the cold.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come and get you?” Jaehyun says, interrupted by a yawn. It must have been almost 3am by now. He had promised to stay awake until she knew Doyoung was going to wake up fully sober the next morning. “Doyoung will be pissed but… we could always stage your own death.”

Eunmi finds some amusement in his words. “Good plan, but I think Doyoung would realise.”

“Why do you think that?” Jaehyun questions.

“Because he knows we went to Busan together, _alone_ , that it’s not just me with one of your men doing what work you don’t want to.”

“ _Oh_.”

She hums.

“That doesn’t mean that he can do anything to either of us,” Jaehyun reminds her. He turns in his head and buries his head deeper into the pillow. “Johnny is supporting you now. If he does anything to us it will destroy NCT.”

“I think that’s what Doyoung wants,” Eunmi answers, “Doyoung wants everything for himself. It doesn’t matter what he has to destroy to make that happen for him. Be it NCT or me.”

“I wouldn’t let him do anything to you, you know that, right?”

And yes, she know that. She'd realised that every inch of Jaehyun’s being would protect her, he wouldn’t hesitate to throw himself under the bus to ensure her safety. It’s obvious; if he truly didn’t care, he’d have himself in line for Doyoung's place instead of her.

“I guess that I’m worried for you, as well as everyone under both you and Doyoung,” she tells him with a sigh. The breeze runs over her skin and sends a shiver down her spine. “There’s a part of me which thinks that you’ll all be pulled into this more than you think. I don’t want anyone to be harmed because of me, let alone _you_. You don’t deserve that.”

Jaehyun hums at the end of the phone. She can imagine that he has his eyes closed right now, drifting into his sleep but keeping himself awake for _her_. It brings a warm feeling to her chest. “You know that we all hate him, don’t you? You act like we all care for Doyoung when really, you’re doing what everyone’s planned to do for a while. You’re just doing it a lot better than any of us could have planned.”

“What are you doing out here?”

She's surprised by Doyoung’s voice behind her, dropping the phone from her ear and turning to face him with wide eyes. Though his words are still slurred a little, his appearance would make her none the wiser to all the alcohol drowning his system. He smiles, bringing the bottle of whiskey he’s grasped in his hand to his lips.

“I expected you to be with me,” Doyoung continues, “it’s not the best feeling to wake up alone when you don’t expect to be.”

Her phone call with Jaehyun is abandoned but she leaves the phone line on for Jaehyun to hear the conversation and be aware of the situation between the two. She's not sure if he is listening anymore, but reality dictates that Jaehyun loses every ounce of sleep and sits up in bed to make sure that he hears everything correctly.

“What does he have that I don’t?”

You frown. “What do you mean by that Doyoung?”

“Jaehyun,” he states, bottle brough to his lips once again. He scoffs, kicking off his shoes and sitting on the floor beside her. “What about him attracts you to him so much more than me? Is it his face? His body? How much money he has? I have more than him. I can get you anything in this world but you don’t see that! What can Jaehyun do for you?”

“I thought you wanted to sleep,” Eunmi answers, ignoring the questions that seem all but obvious to anyone but Doyoung.

“If you were there with me, yeah,” Doyoung tells her.

He looks down to the bottle of whiskey in his hand, sighing once before he tosses it to the side and forgets about its existence. He looks back to her with wide eyes and ignores all signs that she doesn't want him to have anything to do with her, placing his head on her shoulder and closing his eyes. He’s quiet for almost a minute, before he brings his hand to her own and pulls it to the back of his head, running your fingers through the lengths of his hair.

“I want you to see me,” Doyoung whispers, slumber washing over him once more, “I want you to realise what I feel when I look at you and see the real me underneath all of this.”

***

Jaehyun is surprisingly nervous. He has his hand on her waist, looking over to her every few steps to check she's okay. He’s never been to places like this, ones where you need to wear a suit and tie with your hair done all nice. He’s not Kim Doyoung, he’s not accustomed to the life of the rich and the famous.

But he’s got to be one of the finest actors, _liars_ , Yoo Eunmi ever seen. He fits in perfectly with the picture and they look like they belong. Minus the gun he has tucked in his back pocket and knife strapped to her thigh.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jaehyun asks. He pulls out her chair and sits her down, taking the seat opposite to Eunmi afterwards. “If you need me to do anything, let me know.”

“I need us to be seen together.”

Jaehyun nods once. “To get back at Doyoung?”

“Doyoung is with Yuta in Japan. He thinks I’m out with Jungwoo walking the streets to find someone he isn’t too friendly with. Jungwoo and Kun took a night off and I’m here with you. He won’t be the one to see us together.”

“Then who is it?”

“Someone who dislikes both you and Doyoung,” Eunmi states. She catches the very man walking in towards a table not too far from the pair of them. “Doyoung’s weakness is jealousy. Who better to tell him I’m here than someone he hates?”

“And isn’t this dangerous for you to be here?”

She finds a warm feeling rush over her with the concern that Jaehyun shows for her. It means more than she can ever explain, knowing that not every guy she knows will have her in the most compromising position they can give her. Maybe she had started to care.

Unfortunately she can’t explain further or tell Jaehyun not to worry about her before the waiter comes to take their drinks order.

Jaehyun will worry. He’ll try to offer his help but make the whole thing harder for her to control. It’s not his fault – they work differently. She will play the long game and Jaehyun will jump in for revenge. It has become the only disadvantage to not working with Doyoung anymore. Properly, formally, at least.

“I wanted to say thank you, too,” She voices. Eunmi looks from the pristine white menu to Jaehyun, who appears interested in what she will say. “For helping me.”

Jaehyun nods once. He wants to say something, though the fear in his eyes and tense shoulders make him appear scared of saying it out loud. He clears his throat, looking away to the menu for a moment. He glances back to Eunmi merely a second later, not needing to search for her in this pit of lost and broken souls, offering her a smile.

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. I love you.”

“You-”

“I love you,” Jaehyun repeats. He doesn’t break the eye contact they've held since he first muttered those words to her, knowing this is the response he’ll get. He says it because he means it. “I don’t expect you to say it back. I just want you to know. In case anything happens to either of us.”

“Why would anything happen?”

“I’ve been in this a lot longer than you. I know things don’t always go right. Whatever your plan is, something will cause you a problem even if it’s something as small as the time we got here. Don’t think you’re smarter than everyone, even if you are smarter than Doyoung.”

Eunmi hums, placing her menu back down on the table. “Do you think that something will go wrong?”

“I think you’ve placed too much trust in Kun, Jungwoo and especially Taeil. Trusting people gets you into places you won’t want to be in. I’ve been there. Doyoung’s been there.”

“Why should I put so much of my trust in you, then?” she questions.

Jaehyun’s disposition never changes and she feels as though trusting him comes naturally. The stories he tells her and the feelings he gives her is beyond what she can describe. She wonders what is going through his head right now, that she never said it back to him. Love for these men is something that they don’t throw around as much as anything else. Love is just like _trust_ , the stupid thing she has proven herself over and over to hate just as much as Jaehyun does.

Yet Jaehyun loves _you_.

And Doyoung?

“I can’t say I love you to you right now,” Eunmi says, interrupting the silence that responds to her question. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. It means I’ve had it thrown back in my face too many times and I’m scared to say it and mean it. I trust you, Jaehyun, I just don’t trust this world that we live in. If I trusted Jungwoo and Kun as much as you then I would be carrying this out with them.”

“And if they said they loved you?”

She finds it hard to imagine a world where that was the case. “They’re not you, it wouldn’t matter to me.”

***

“Can you hear me?” Doyoung’s voice calls, travelling through the earpiece Eunmi has hidden in her ear. The lack of a pet name comes because all his other men can hear what he says, and Doyoung will be damned to ever show affection in front of another. She takes a seat down at the bar he’d instructed her to go to and nods in the direction of the camera she knows Doyoung and Taeil are watching her through. “Don’t talk to anyone until I tell you to. Don’t think about moving until I say you can.”

Doyoung is trusting her with his biggest nightmare outside of NCT. A middle aged guy from Canada who never knew how to shut up and speaks four different languages to add to the excitement. He lost Doyoung money, he sold his secrets to their rivals and Eunmi understood why Doyoung wanted him infiltrated.

Leave him alone and no one benefits, that’s what he told her. Instead of arguing with him, Eunmi sat there and told him she'd do whatever he wanted her to do. He kissed her, never uttered a thank you, and left her alone for the rest of the night.

“He’s just walked in the front door,” Kun says. His voice is hushed, he’s perched at a table with a drink in his hand and food in front of him. “Black blazer. Blue shoes. He’s got two men following him but they’re at a distance.”

Eunmi takes a deep breath and smiles to herself in the mirror opposite to her. She's not his type. Hell, she's no one’s type here. Who goes for a girl with short hair and messy eyeliner and tattoos down their arms? It’s not what they want. Yet, somehow, it’s what they all are attracted to.

Because she's not ugly. She just has a personality few could like. Similar to some others she knows.

“He’s seen you,” Doyoung states. He breathes into the microphone heavily before continuing. “Tuck your hair behind your ear on your left side. Call for the bartender and look around as though you’re looking for someone. When he talks to you, you’re there for a friend.”

Eunmi does as told. She notices the man, Yeongcheol, catch her eyes as she looks around. She ignores it for a moment, checking the other side for her unknown guest before looking back to him and offering a smile as she looks down to the ground. Doyoung knows him well, as he sits beside her within seconds.

Obnoxious. Narcissistic. She can smell the expensive taste off of him from where he sits and it _reeks._ Insurance fraud, black markets and stolen trade. She imagines what he does is barely comprehensible to the public.

“I’ve seen you around Jung Jaehyun,” he says, “you’re his girl, am I right?”

Her night doesn’t begin as Doyoung planned.

“I think you’re mistaken,” she states. Eunmi hopes that Doyoung would have said something but he’s silent. She's mad at him. He’s not answering because he’s _jealous_ and she's left on her own.

“ _Pretty_ , I don’t think you should lie to me. What has Jaehyun asked you to come out here for?”

“ _Fuck_.” Doyoung’s curse travels through the room and he starts to mutter under his breath. She tries to stall, but calling for the bartender again can only buy her so much time. “How does he know you’re tied to Jaehyun?”

She hums softly as she turns back to Yeongcheol. “How do you know about Jaehyun and I?”

“I’ve seen the pictures of you two on his phone. Pretty cozy, you’re hot naked. You should tell him to keep his phone at home unless he wants to access all his files.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” she asks, her lips pressed together and jaw clenched. She waits for Doyoung to instruct her but he’s as quiet as everyone else.

“You found out he was sleeping with someone else as well as you and wanted to sell him out. Who do you want me to tell where he lives, I’ve got connections everywhere.”

“Leave,” Doyoung tells her, “get out of there now. Don’t tell him why, just get up and go.”

She watches Yeongcheol for a moment. She can run, risk her own life since she's known to everyone now and always wonder if he’s going to come back and haunt her. Or she can finish what she came here to start.

Fuck Doyoung, fuck what he stands for.

“Remind me of who you can get?” she asks, smiling sweetly despite the stern look she's given by Yeongcheol.

“ _Shut the fuck up_.”

“I’ve heard things about you but not enough to know who could get a knife through Jaehyun’s throat before Hendery or Xiaojun. They’re quick for new guys, aren’t they? Better than most can provide.”

Yeongcheol looks back to his left bodyguard, nodding once. The bodyguard walks forward and passes him a small card that is tucked away in his left pocket. “You want names?”

“I want ideas,” she states, “what the people you know can do. I heard about the guy who had all of his limbs cut off one by one, that’s creative. The one who had air injected into his veins slowly and had how many heart attacks? You definitely have some interesting contacts.”

“ _I will come down there and get you myself.”_

“Tell me how you want Jaehyun to go.”

Eunmi, creative as can be, draws a blank. She tries to think of the unspeakable things she's heard him do to people, what he’s whispered to her when he thinks she'll run and his tactics of keeping people loyal to him. Instead you’re left with Doyoung. The one who knows what ruins people and takes people down from the outside in.

So she shrugs, turning fully to him. Her back is to the camera that Doyoung is watching her on. She doesn't  _need_ him. “You take away everything that’s precious to him. The boys he watches over. The power he has. Jaehyun is a man of many talents but he’s nothing without the people who support him. You have someone who can take care of that?”

“And what about you? Don’t you support him?”

“That’s easy,” she crosses her arms over her chest, “it will ruin him to think I betrayed him. Then he’s as weak as anything. You can pass him over to one of your contacts and get a well deserved raise. So what do you think, Yeongcheol?”

He eyes her suspiciously. She begs, _prays_ he’ll say something before Doyoung gets down here. She can hear his heavy footsteps through the building, the earpiece deafening her with each step. He’s angry, but not just because it didn’t work out like planned. _Jaehyun’s girl_. Doyoung wouldn’t stand the thought of that.

“I have a man who can do it. Seventeen-N will take care of it when they’re free.”

“Seventeen-N?” Eunmi questions.

“Not heard of the new boys in town? Jaehyun doesn’t know much about the world, does he.” Yeongcheol is right, but Doyoung didn’t know either. “Watch out for them. Normal looking lads who won’t hesitate to put a knife in anyone’s back. Even yours. Keep this quiet. I’ll get you in contact with their leader.”

“And what should I call their leader when we speak?”

Yeongcheol slips his hand into his pocket, pulling out a business card with his contact details on. He hands it to her with a straight face. “Contact me when you’re alone. We’ll discuss at another time.”

“Of course.” Eunmi slips the card in the only place it will be safe from Doyoung tonight. Her purse. He’ll be too busy to check there before she can save the number. “It was lovely to meet you, Yeongcheol. I hope we can continue to work together into the future.”

Eunmi leaves without an aftertaste in the air. She heads towards the entrance back into the hotel, the red carpet leading her straight to the elevator. Even Doyoung’s fire couldn’t beat the smirk on her face. She got what she and him both wanted.

***

“You told him you wanted me dead?”

Eunmi nods, leaning against the wall in Jaehyun’s living room. Him and all his boys are over, since she asked him to call them all here to _meet_. She had important information he would need to listen to, except she's sure he didn’t expect her to come here and tell him the events of last night.

“He knows who they are,” she tells him, noticing Hendery and Chenle become far more interested, “he’s compromised you somehow. He has access to your phone. He asked me why I was there and I had to get it out of him. He wouldn’t tell me any leader’s names but–”

“Did he at least tell you their group name?” Hendery asks, interrupting. He earns not much but a glare from Jaehyun for stopping Eunmi's story. “Is it IKON? ACE?”

“Seventeen-N. He said they’re new. I’m not sure if that’s a sub-group, but it’s something. He wants me to contact him when I’m ready to discuss, and he’ll put me in contact with their leader.”

Jaehyun looks somewhat relieved. Unlike everyone else who’s sat on his couches, overjoyed that there’s finally a name to go on and work from, he’s perched on the side of a table and seems more annoyed than anything.

Because she didn’t trust him enough to tell him? Something like that. The feeling in his chest isn’t exactly on trust. He’s concerned that she was sat in the same room as someone like Yeongcheol and he’s fearful that this will come back to haunt her. He’s hurt by the thought of her wanting him dead but he has to tell himself that it’s for the sake of _her_ , for him, and he lets go of his emotions when he next meets Eunmi's eyes and notices her concern.

“Does anyone else know?”

“Doyoung, Kun, Taeil and Jungwoo. They were all part of it,” she answers Jaehyun. She pulls the business card that Yeongcheol had given her from her pocket and pass it over to Chenle. “They don’t have that. Doyoung doesn’t know I’m here but I’m sure he’ll make some guesses, so whatever you need to know, ask now.”

The room falls silent for a moment. Chenle is looking at the number to try and recall anything similar that he knows. Hendery and Xiaojun are looking down to the floor alike. Jisung is looking over to Lucas, who is looking down to the notes he’s been taking. Jaehyun’s the only one who has a clue what to do, or what to say, or _anything._

He walks over to Eunmi, stopping a few inches away. He seemed scared to approach her until she offered him a smile and the aurora around him fades. His arms are thrown around her and he pulls her into his embrace, much to the surprise of the boys around them who haven’t seen their leader have so much emotion for a long time.

“Doyoung’s a dead man walking,” he whispers. He’s _so_ warm, his body enveloping her and bringing her nothing but joy. His lips gently press to the side of her neck, just below her ear. “Thank you. For telling us, for everything.”

She shakes her head when he pulls away, telling him that it’s not a problem to her. Doyoung has never hugged her. The most emotion he’s ever showed is when he’s sat with her and gave her something of his because he doesn’t like her the way she is.

Every single act, be it one that was intended or not, makes this clear distinction between the two of them for Eunmi. Even Jaehyun’s men, his _boys_ , were different and you could tell they had been under someone who had an ounce of trust left in their blood. There is still time for Jungwoo, Taeil and Kun.

There begs the question though — what did Doyoung want with her after all of this? If not her trust, maybe more connected than that, then it must have been _her_. All of her, every limb and every cell that produced thought. He wanted it all directed at him.

And for what?

His own selfish desire to be other all others?

It wouldn’t have been much of a surprise to anyone.

“Why did you tell him that you wanted Jaehyun dead?” Jisung asks, curious as ever to the information that seemed out of place to him. Chenle agrees with his question.

“Because I had to have a reason to need one of these assassins to work with us,” Eunmi answers, pulling away from Jaehyun with the smell of his old cologne still lingering. “He knew me because of Jaehyun, not Doyoung. It made more sense to seem as though I wanted to take Jaehyun’s power rather than Doyoung’s. Or, just have him killed.”

Xiaojun and Hendery share a look of confusion until one of them speaks up. Hendery of course, the one who always does the speaking. “Why would they even know you knew Jaehyun, though?”

***

Johnny and Jaehyun are both sat opposite to Eunmi, their eyes locked on hers for whatever she had to say to the pair of them. Negotiation was never her strong point. She finds herself torn by Jaehyun’s eagerness to do this himself and Johnny’s plan to use everyone against Doyoung and remove him that way.

“It makes more sense to have him killed,” she answers, much to the enjoyment of Jaehyun. He smiles and nods at her words, before pushing his hair back from his eyes. Eunmi turns to Johnny though, laying her cards down before him. “You’re right, though. We shouldn’t be the ones to orchestrate it. It needs to be someone who cares about NCT enough to kill Doyoung.”

Jaehyun raises his brow. “You’re talking about Taeyong.”

“Taeyong won’t do anything unless he sees a real threat. It’s hard to ensure he’ll get involved,” Johnny states, his matter of fact much more important than anything else he’s said before. To think he wanted her to _leave_.

“So what if we tell Taeyong that Doyoung wants to kill him?”

Jaehyun’s plan is considered for a moment by both Eunmi and Johnny but neither of them are satisfied. Johnny words it for her. “NCT means more to Taeyong than his own life. If he knows NCT will carry on, albeit through one of us, then he’ll be fine to sacrifice himself.”

“And if Doyoung is trying to destroy NCT from the inside out?”

“I need more details than that,” Johnny replies to Eunmi, “tell me the whole story. What are we putting in the mouth of Kim Doyoung and what do you need spread around?”

She hums to herself as she thinks through an entire conspiracy to accuse Doyoung of. It’s harder than first considered. There’s so much of Doyoung to put into it. She may know Doyoung better than anyone else living in this time, but she knew nothing of him as a person. That didn’t make it hard to display him as a heartless, cold-blooded killer who would happily have 20 men dead for his own cause.

“Doyoung has been talking about it to me. He mentioned that he’s gathering information about you two and Yuta, and having Kun, Taeil and Jungwoo do the rest of his work for him. He’s gathering information to otherthrow them, blackmail them into getting Taeyong out of power and taking the lead of NCT for himself to destroy NCT from the inside out. Take NCT’s money, take NCT’s influence and give him an alliance with Seventeen-N to destroy all triads in the country and become the one, overall criminal overlord who sees to every crime at the tips of his fingers with a group of rogue assassins at his beck and call. There won’t be an NCT anymore, just Kim Doyoung.”

Jaehyun and Johnny both take a while to digest the story fully and take in each component to the fullest extent. A story to take to Taeyong? It’s more than that. It can be taken to any triad in the area to force them to have a vengeance against Doyoung and all he stands for. Johnny appears to like it.

“Of course if we are using Seventeen-N I will have to pretend that I want Jaehyun dead,” Eunmi reminds them both.

“We can work around that. Jaehyun can stay off the radar and you will have to spend all of your time with Doyoung so it looks to be that he is forcing you to act that way. You need to get Doyoung to say things that work to our advantage which we can take to Taeyong.”

“And we need Doyoung to hurt someone within NCT,” Jaehyun says.

“Hurt them?” she questions with narrowed eyes. “I don’t want anything to happen to anyone who isn’t involved. Doyoung is the one who we need to get rid of and he’s the only one who needs to be harmed. I don’t want more than one person’s blood on my hands, or yours.”

Johnny hums in agreeance. “Jaehyun has a point, we have to show that Doyoung means business here. I can stage a death if needs be.”

“It’s too risky if Taeyong is to remain and find out it was all made up. If he thinks someone is dead and finds out later they’re not, that’s on our hands.” Jaehyun pulls a list of all the members of NCT from his pocket, added names here and there in his own handwriting. Your name is right at the bottom of Doyoung’s food chain.

“Me,” she tells them both. Jaehyun is the first to begin his protest but she stops him with a show of her hand. “What can Taeyong do if we tell him that Doyoung is forcing me to do this? He forced me to be a part of NCT to begin with. I can make it as though he’s still forcing me to do his work for him. We went to Jeju so he could meet off the radar with Seventeen-N. He put me in contact with Yeongcheol to have you killed. It makes sense.”

Jaehyun shakes his head, the list placed back in his pocket. “Doyoung will kill you if he has the right means to. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Doyoung won’t kill her,” Johnny answers, rolling his eyes as his hands are placed in his jacket pocket, “it’s obvious to anyone within 20 metres of Kim Doyoung that he’s in love with her. He won’t kill her, but he’ll use whatever force necessary to make you his.”

***

“Do you think about Jaehyun when I do this?” Doyoung’s hand wraps tighter around her neck, not enough to hurt her but enough to tell her to _shut up_. He presses himself against her, his cock prominent through his sweatpants and rubbing against the curve of her ass. “You want him to be the one who fucks you? Is he the real reason you stick around here?”

Eunmi bites her tongue. She curses herself for being this weak. Falling for the one she was meant to be in control of. She hates how she can fall from his every word and push herself back into him. She hates how she would beg him to touch her right now and have her unable to walk for days.

Doyoung’s lips are on her neck. He’s hovering, waiting for her to say something to aggravate him and send him over the edge. She gives into him instead. “Jaehyun will never be as good to me as you.”

“Because you’re just a whore to him?” Doyoung asks. He laughs under his breath. “You’re not that to me, baby girl. So why do you still want him? What does he give you that I don’t?”

“Please, Doyoung.”

He loosens his grip at her words. A short pause, then he’s back to touching her body where she wanted it the most. He knows her so well. “What is it baby?”

“Please fuck me. Like you did before. When you fucked me so good that everyone heard, everyone knew I was yours. When Jaehyun realised he would never have a chance with me because I’m yours and only yours. Please. Show me what I am to you.”

But it’s all for show.

Doyoung is so close to creaming his sweatpants already and it’s all because of _her_. She can’t work him out entirely. He’s desperate, maybe, or he has no control over himself. He prides himself on not being too attached to anything but the thought of her has him edging every time they're in the room together.

Or it’s Eunmi _._

“You want that, baby?” Doyoung questions, dragging the tips of his fingers up the back of her thigh. He reaches the hem of his shirt she's wearing, slipping his hand underneath until the panties she's wearing are dragged down to her knees like he has all the time in the world. He’s so slow, but she can feel everything like he’s done it a thousand times over. “Come on baby girl, talk to me. Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

“Put your fingers on my clit and treat me like I’ve been a _bad girl_.”

Doyoung’s act falters for the smallest of seconds. She can hear his breathing stop and his hips snap forward at the very words which send him into a deeper level of oblivion. Something she had picked up from his lack of use of the incognito tab and a habit of breaking into other phones she'd picked up from Chenle? Eunmi will blame her eagerness on that.

“Like a bad girl?” Doyoung repeats, closer to her with each word. His mouth is mere millimetres from her cheek, bodies pressed so tightly together that they're  _almost_ , but never, _one._ “What have you done to be bad?”

She pushes herself off of the wall, right into Doyoung to follow the curve of his body. His clothed cock is right where her heat is, she can feel his body begging him to shut up and get what he wanted already. Ditch that persona that makes him feel so entitled and realise he’s nothing more than human.

“You know what I’ve done Doyoung. You know about Jaehyun.”

Doyoung pushes her back against the wall with the most primal of growls Eunmi thinks she's ever heard. Just the name of his competitor fills his mind with rage. His blood is boiling by the time he pulls down his sweatpants and boxers with it. His grip remains on her neck and stops her from moving at all, leaving you to relish in the sounds behind her.

“I know about Jaehyun.” Doyoung isn’t so friendly anymore. His fingers are sure to leave bruises wherever he touches her. The hand on her hip to hold her against him, feeling his bare cock now pressed against your thighs. He uses his knee to separate her legs and bends her down the littlest bit to have her spine bend to his very will. “I don’t think that you deserve to have what you want. Use you like my whore. That’s what you said, isn’t it? That you’re a whore I never want to see again. I can treat you like that, can’t I, baby girl?”

_Whatever you’re into, Kim Doyoung._


	6. five [end]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eunmi realises that it isn't so hard to find her allies, and she may have been making her bed and sleeping in it this entire time

“I don’t want you to do it,” Jaehyun states. He’s rarely ever sounded so sure of something in Eunmi's presence, aside from when he tells her he loves her and that he would protect her no matter what happened. The way his voice echoes around the room brings the hairs on your arms to a stand. “I don’t want something to happen to you.”

“Do you trust me, Jaehyun?” 

Eunmi's eyes meet Jaehyun’s, concern flooding through the space between the both of them. He frowns, pulling down his mask. “What do you mean?”

“I always tell you I trust you. I would follow you into a burning building if you told me I would get out alive. Do you trust me? Would you follow me?”

Jaehyun nods. “I trust you with my life, too.”

“No matter what Doyoung says about me, don't believe it.”

He hates her. Doyoung has an x, painted straight from the blood seeping from the wounds she's inflicted on him, right over Eunmi's face. There's no Jeno any more. No protection risk. It's just the two of them and the lies she has started about yourself.

“If you believe him this won't work. Ignore him. I don't care how many times he says I've been with him, what I've done with other people, ignore him. This time tomorrow you'll take his position.”

“The very first thing Taeyong taught me is not to trust Kim Doyoung,” Jaehyun tells her. He smiles weakly, bringing his hand to her cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Jaehyun.”

Eunmi's catches words him off guard, expecting her to tell him how he was wrong for saying she shouldn’t do it. The three words he didn’t expect to hear come from her lips until Doyoung was buried as far deep as his enemies and she was safe from any threat he posed to her. 

“You--”

“I have for a while,” she tells him. Eunmi leans in to press her lips to his, eyes falling shut at the relief that his presence alone can bring to her. When she pulls back from him he has a wash of contentment roll over him. “I should have told you earlier. I was trying to shut out any feelings because of… I don’t have an excuse. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have waited to tell you.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter to me. But I’m still concerned about you in all of this. Doyoung is dangerous.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” she reassures Jaehyun, “you heard what Johnny said.”

“I don’t really enjoy thinking about Doyoung being in love with you. I suppose it’s better than Johnny, or Yuta.”

Eunmi finds it in her to softly chuckle at Jaehyun’s joke, taking a seat on one of the chairs in his basement. She remembers the first time she came down here as she picks up the knife that Hendery had left here for them to use for  _whatever they needed_. “Can you imagine asking Doyoung to help overthrow either of them? God, that would be hell. I imagine that Doyoung is the person that double crosses everyone.”

“Or acts like he had nothing to do with anything.” Jaehyun pulls a chair over to sit across from her, eyeing the knife before sighing. “I know you’re adamant about this, but what if something goes wrong? You’re about to cut down your whole thigh just to frame Doyoung. What if you bleed out? What if it gets infected?”

“That’s why you’re here.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, pulling the knife from her hands. “Let me do it.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Do I look like I would joke about cutting one of your arteries?” Jaehyun places the knife on the floor, beside his feet, then pulls some bottles and bandages from his pocket. He takes a packaged needle from the other pocket afterwards, laying them down on the floor too. “I know where you should avoid. So please just trust  _ me  _ on this one.”

Eunmi's realise that in one of the bottles he has local anaesthetic, which she assumes the needle is for. From watching for a few moments she can see that Jaehyun must have acquired some skill with this kind of thing. “Have you had to do this to somebody else?”

“I’ve had too many people come home with knife wounds and other shit like that to not have to know what to do in this situation. Just… sit still and everything will be fine, yeah?”

“Thank you,” she says, watching Jaehyun begin to sterilise the knife too. “Remind me to thank you properly later though.”

Jaehyun looks up briefly to raise his brow at her. “Thank me properly?”

“You’re disgusting. I meant to buy you some bubble tea or food later.”

“Just having you here is thanks enough,” Jaehyun answers. He rubs a soaked cotton ball over a section on her leg and draws some of the anaesthetic from the glass bottle. “Not afraid of needles, are you?”

She shakes her head but looks away from Jaehyun, inhaling deeply as she feels the sharp prick over her skin. “I guess this is a pretty cool date to tell our kids one day.  _ Daddy injected mommy with anaesthetic and cut her thigh open to make it seem like one of his business partners was hurting her _ .”

“Our kids?” 

“Too far?” Eunmi asks.

“Definitely not,” Jaehyun answers, “keep talking about our future, it might make this a little easier.”

***

Jeno stands at the corner of the room with a gun in his hands, pointing down at the floor as he observes the scene before him. 

Johnny, the least caring of any men he has met, sits on a chair beside the others with genuine fear in his eyes for how this will turn out. He wears all black, for once, shrouding himself in a cloak of misery for his  _ associate.  _ Jeno realises that he doesn't care at all, that the facade is for the power play that everyone somehow had an interest in. Yet still, Johnny brings a tear to his eye by pressing on his tear duct and forcing the emotion he needs so badly. 

Jaehyun is by the window, afraid to look back and see the imminent destruction that he has helped to forge. His hands are covered in as much blood as anyone else, if not more, yet he tries to appear as an innocent party when he knows that this time tomorrow he could be walking as a king amongst men. Johnny would be one of his closer enemies than before. 

And Eunmi?

There's nothing left in Eunmi's eyes. 

Jeno has begun to blame himself for… well,  _ everything _ . Eunmi is here because of him. She would never have known about Johnny if he didn’t work with him. If he wouldn’t have been attacked then Doyoung wouldn’t have paid for his room and she wouldn’t have had to repay his debt. Then Jaehyun wouldn’t have gotten involved and… it’s far from simple, but to Jeno it’s as easy as  _ a + b = c.  _

Substitute  _ a  _ for Jeno,  _ b  _ for his lack of insight into what his decisions would bring him, and  _ this  _ is the answer. 

Though he has realised that his duty here is to stand by Eunmi's side and make sure she was okay no matter what she faced in this world he dragged her into. He knew the entire plan with Jaehyun, that the reason they're all here, the  _ cut  _ along her thigh is a lie that Jaehyun, Johnny and Eunmi come up with when she realised that there was a common denominator in all of their problems. Eunmi  _ trusted  _ him with the biggest secret she probably ever had and so in return, he would be ready to sacrifice himself for her and he can’t even tell her that because if she knew he thought that she would…

Jeno’s thoughts are interrupted when there is a subtle, yet loud enough, knock on Johnny’s iron door. He looks over to Eunmi, meeting her eyes and nods once, opening the door and readying himself to set a bullet between the eyes of any intruder that stood in her way. 

“Taeyong-ssi,” Johnny states. He stands up immediately, bowing to his authority. Jaehyun follows suit, so Jeno does the same as he meets the eyes of the leader who he never dreamed of coming near to. Eunmi stands too, albeit leaning on Johnny for support, bowing as best she could with the injury “Thank you for coming.”

Jeno swallows hard as Taeyong hums, the leader looking back to Johnny before Jeno has a chance to think this through any further. Taeyong doesn’t look like a leader. Anyone could have easily confused Doyoung as a leader but Taeyong, his wide eyes always shine and he would have easily fit into Jeno’s friendship group at university.

“I heard that there are some problems with Doyoung?” Taeyong asks, moving closer to the three. Jeno shuts the door, standing guard in front of it to ensure that  _ he  _ would face any consequences. 

“Yes.” Johnny turns to Eunmi, gesturing with the nod of his head to her leg. “It seems that Doyoung is… on a frolic of his own.”

Taeyong hums, bringing his hands together behind his back. The blazer he is wearing appears to have some stains on the end of the sleeves. Jeno believes that it may have something to do with all the people that Jaemin says are betraying NCT. “Is this to do with Jeju, Jaehyun?”

“What we discuss, yes.”

“And you’re here to tell me that Doyoung is going to betray NCT?” Taeyong directs towards Eunmi. 

Jeno also believes, from the tone of Taeyong’s voice, that this won’t go to plan. He can see a momentary look of fear in Eunmi's eyes as she looks to Taeyong and realises that  _ this  _ is the only chance she, and anyone else, has to get rid of Doyoung. If anything goes wrong then that is a problem for her. For everyone here. 

“He wishes to start with Jaehyun,” she tells Taeyong. He remains emotionless. “There’s a new group called Seventeen-N, they--”

“Seventeen-N are a sub-group of Seventeen. Seventeen-N operate in North Seoul. Lead by  _ Hoshi _ . They like to stab people in the back and don’t care too much for loyalty,” Taeyong recalls directly from his the back of his memory. “Now tell me why Doyoung is betraying NCT?”

There’s a looming silence which dictates the atmosphere in the room. It becomes cold, a place of no solace, each man for himself. Jeno worries that Johnny and Jaehyun will change their minds. He’s heard from Eunmi that Jaehyun wouldn’t do that, he’s heard that Jaehyun professed his love to her but he can’t  _ trust  _ someone in that position. 

“Because you got the information from Doyoung, right?” she questions.

“My source is irrelevant.”

“Not when I work under Doyoung and I don’t know any of that. That everyone other than Kim Doyoung has barely any information on Seventeen-N or whoever they’re a part of, because of how hard they are to track. Every camera was turned off in the area. There is no trace of any of their existence. The only reason I know of them was because Doyoung told me to convince them I wanted Jaehyun killed too. Now how do you think Doyoung found any of that out?”

Taeyong is left to bite his tongue. Eunmi looks over him with a sense of relief that Taeyong wasn’t about to kill all four people in the room without a second thought. Though she no longer seems so tense, both Jaehyun and Johnny are of a similar disposition to Jeno. One thing out of place and  _ all  _ of this goes wrong. 

“He wishes to start with Jaehyun,” Eunmi starts once more, sticking to her previously learned speech. “He took me to Jeju with him as a cover. He said he wanted to take me there too… It’s  _ irrelevant.  _ He met with someone there about Seventeen-N. I don’t know who, he left me in the room and told me I wasn’t allowed to leave. He sent me to Yeongcheol as some kind of distraction, to make it look as if I wanted Jaehyun dead. When I asked him why he told me that it was because it would look more authentic if it came from me because there were rumours going around about Jaehyun and I. He made it into something else in front of Kun, Taeil and Jungwoo and when I told him that I wouldn’t do anything else he threatened me. What do you think this is? Something he does to everyone under him?”

Jeno follows Taeyong’s gaze to her leg. It’s barely recovered, the bruised flesh with the stitches Jaehyun used to sew it back up one of the many indicators that she must had been in a lot of pain. Jeno knew about the anaesthetic, though. 

Taeyong approaches with caution, stopping a foot or so from her. He looks over to Johnny as he exhales deeply, conflicted in his views. “What do you think of this?”

“Doyoung is  _ Doyoung _ , he was always the most unstable.”

“And the most likely to fuck everyone over,” Jaehyun adds on, pushing his hair back from his forehead. He rolls his eyes in frustration. “This was likely to happen, it’s a shame that it happened to one of the newer members. I stitched it up myself, she would have died otherwise. Doyoung is going to have everyone here murdered so that he can get paid whatever Ikon or Ace or  _ whoever  _ offered him.”

“He forced her to be a part of NCT because of this. We’re not like that, Taeyong. We don’t force people to do work for NCT and almost kill them when they don’t agree with doing what they want. Especially when it involves murdering another one of us.”

Taeyong nods. It appears that he values Johnny’s word over Jaehyun’s, perhaps because he makes more sense, but also because Taeyong isn’t stupid and can see how Jaehyun looks over to Eunmi with such care. 

He stops after pacing back and forth, taking his phone from his pocket and entering a few buttons. “I’ll look into this. I trust Doyoung as much as I trust both of you, but there is something more to this.”

“Don’t let Doyoung do anything to anyone else,” Eunmi's voice echoes through the silent, still room. 

Taeyong doesn’t return her even a glance. 

***

“A frolic of his own?” Eunmi asks Johnny, raising an eyebrow at him. Jaehyun has joined in her confusion for the words that Johnny had stated before. 

“Doyoung said it at some point,” Johnny returns. He looks down to the plate of food in front of him and rolls his eyes. “I don’t know. He did a term in the UK and covered employer’s liability or whatever. Said that if you do something aside from the nature of your work it is a frolic of your own. It was fitting.”

Jaehyun hums. “Use the man against himself. Classy.”

“Make the person he loves fall in love with you instead,” Johnny mocks with a sarcastic tone, “now  _ that  _ is classy.”

“Doyoung did that himself.”

"Can you both stop it?" Eunmi's voice breaks both Johnny and Jaehyun, the latter of which turns to her with an apologetic glance. He looks down to the table and let's her continue. "Taeyong may not even believe us."

Jeno, who had been standing in the corner the whole time to ponder over the conversation, clears his throat as he steps forward. He's met with the questioning glances of both Johnny and Jaehyun. "If I could--"

"You're not meant to be here."

"And you're not meant to be talking." Eunmi stops Johnny's interjection with a firm voice, narrowing her eyes at him. Jaehyun hums with enjoyment for his  _ friend  _ being shut up by his now _girlfriend._ Are they exclusive like that? Neither of them really addressed that issue. "Jeno has as much right to be here as you."

Jeno appears awkward as he tries to join the conversation again. He  _ errs  _ over what words to say until he's met with three menacing stares. "Taeyong has not reason not to believe you. He doesn't like Doyoung either."

"Who told you that, Doyoung?" Jaehyun questions. 

"I heard him say it to Yuta," Jeno replies, "I mean.. uh, Yuta-ssi. They were talking about it before."

Jaehyun raises his brow as if to question the legitimacy of the youngest's statement. He stands slowly, walking back to the window. "Even if he believes us, we're on the thinnest of ice with him. The only person Taeyong has ever liked is Johnny."

"I doubt that, he doesn't like me too much either."

"It will work," she tells them with the last hint of optimism, "he trusts you two, so can we just have a little bit of faith?"

It silences the pair of them for a while, at least. Just enough for Eunmi to approach Jaehyun at the window and place her hand on his shoulder to take his attention away from whatever he was focused on. He turns to her, lips curling into a smile as he places his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him. 

He presses his lips to her hairline, soft against her skin which contradicts everything around them, as he whispers to her. "Doyoung won't escape this."

"Let's not talk about Doyoung," she replies to him, "let's talk about where we will go when this is over. I want to go to Madrid."

"Madrid? Okay, we can go to Madrid."

"And Paris."

"Paris for definite," Jaehyun repeats back to her, "though I would quite like to spend one night in Seoul doing nothing. Order Chinese food, watch a movie and forget about everything that's been happening."

Eunmi nods in agreement. "Perfect place to do it is your place. Or we skip the movie and watch the stars instead."

"We could skip everything and do something which only involves you and me?"

"I appreciate that you are both looking forward to the future but there is more than just you two here," Johnny interrupts, again, an unimpressed gaze faced towards the both of them. He stands and walks towards the door, gesturing for Jeno to follow him. "Don't do anything stupid until the threat of Doyoung is eliminated."

"Define stupid?"

Johnny sighs at Jaehyun's request. "Whatever it is, it better not involve either of you being killed."

"Want to go to Madrid now?" The smirk on Jaehyun's face is unbeaten. "Since we won't get killed in Madrid, hm?"

"Or seen in public!"

***

“I don’t have feelings for you,” Doyoung states. He narrows his eyes at Eunmi. “Don’t you dare come here and accuse me of having feelings for  _ you _ . You’re here to get me information. You’re here to fuck me when I’m bored. That’s all you are.”

She hums. “I thought the least.”

“Are you going to run back to Jaehyun now and tell him what I’ve said? Are you going to suck his dick and ask him to help you with Jeno now? You know he knows exactly what you are. Jaehyun isn’t stupid. He’s not going to touch you with a ten foot barge pole. You don’t mean anything to anyone.”

“Yet I’m still here,” She states. She pushes her hair behind her ears and look over to the locked wooden door. “Tell me, Kim Doyoung, how much do you think Johnny would pay to know how much you sold him out for with those two men? I hear he’s onto you. And Yuta with his moles going missing. Do you think he’d appreciate finding out it was you, too?”

“They wouldn’t believe a word that comes out of your fucking mouth.”

Graced with a smile on her red stained lips, Eunmi stands from the desk she had been leaning on and pulls a USB from her back pocket. “Do you think they’d believe it coming out of your mouth, instead?”

“I’ve never said anything,” Doyoung tells her. His voice never falters, strong as it ever was without a hint of doubt. He might not remember, he might not even care. “I never said a fucking thing. You’re delusional. I didn’t do anything to them.”

“If you say.”

She turns around, heading towards the door she had entered from. It takes Doyoung only a few steps to stop her again. “Who’s put you up to this? Jaehyun? Has he told you to do this?”

Eunmi chooses not to answer. Rather, she leans back against the door and tracks Doyoung’s steps until he’s right in front of her, seething and ready to bite. He doesn’t grin, he doesn’t try to mock her. 

“Jaehyun set you up to this,” Doyoung states, “yes. That’s why you’ve been with him so much. You and Jaehyun set this all up between you and now you’re taking me out too. Of course, I’m so stupid. How could I not see it? You could never have been loyal to just me, could you sweetheart? You could never settle for me. You needed someone who wanted help too, you couldn’t have someone who was already too powerful. You’re not strong enough, you can’t handle me.”

“Maybe you're right, I can't handle you.” 

Her concession comes as a surprise to Doyoung. He narrows his eyes at her as he breathes heavily through his nose. She brings her hand to his cheek, fingertips grazing his skin as she hums to herself. She reaches up to him, pressing her lips to his for a moment and leaving a red stain over his own. 

“Maybe you were too much for me,” she states softly. Eunmi detaches herself from Doyoung and takes a step back from him. “We could have had so much Kim Doyoung. We could have had all of NCT under our control but I think… I was too much for you. I don't think you could handle sharing everything with me.”

Doyoung scoffs. “Sharing with you wasn't an option.”

“Even though you're here because of me?”

“Because of you?” Doyoung repeats. There’s such a sour tone which runs in the undercurrent of each word. How he looks at her. How he takes in each breath with the sheer purposes of taking it away from  _ her _ . Underneath all of that, she believes he still may have one weakness. “You think I am  _ Kim Doyoung  _ because of…  _ you _ ?”

His laugh brings another smile to grace her lips. He soon realises his humour at her words isn’t reciprocated and brings himself to calm. He looks over her once more, still infatuated by the way her body stands before him, eyes hungry for one last opportunity to convert her to his own slave. He clears his throat before turning around, heading for the bed where his jacket and bag lay. 

“One last time?” she says softly, catching his attention. He turns back to her with wide eyes. “I prefer you to Jaehyun. Hard to imagine why, but there’s just something you do to me Kim Doyoung. Maybe it’s the way you choke me, or hold me down and make me beg for more. Maybe it’s because you’re not that nice to me. I never wanted a friend in all of this.”

“You wanted me,” Doyoung states, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He looks over to the window and hums to himself.

“That’s the sad truth here, Doyoung. I wanted you this whole time. Every time I closed my eyes I saw  _ you _ . Whenever I took a breath it was for you. That’s what you always wanted and when you got it, you couldn’t handle it. What did you say to me?  _ I don’t want to date anyone. It has too much risk. But you… I want to date you. I want to experience what it’s like to date you.  _ Do you know how many times those words went around my head?”

Doyoung can’t meet Eunmi's eyes. He’s focused on the floor and all the things he’s said to her. He may now see that recalling his every word was something that came easily to her. “Things would have been different if I would have accepted that I love you.”

“So different,” she reaffirms to him. Eunmi smiles to yourself, sitting beside him on the bed so their legs are just touching. Her hand finds its way to his own as she intwines her fingers with his own and leans her head on his shoulder. “You could have accepted that I loved you, too.”

“It was never that easy.”

“It never is.”

Doyoung turns to Eunmi with a soft expression, though never catches her attention. He squeezes her hand, understanding that he picked his own fate with the way he has acted this entire time. “I knew you would pick Jaehyun over me. I knew from when he first mentioned he wanted you to work under him. But when I saw you I just wanted you for myself and I couldn’t let Jaehyun win like that. God, do you know how beautiful I think you are? Do you know how much I would give to protect you? What I would do for you?”

“It’s too late for that now.” Eunmi takes her hand from Doyoung’s and instead brings it to his shoulder. He meets her eyes and for the first time, she sees a hint of sadness in his eyes. “Can we just talk tonight? Lay here and talk.”

There may be a point where she realised what fate she had inflicted on Kim Doyoung; _forced_ him in to. To see him fragile for the first time since she's known him. To see a heartbroken man shattered by a heartbreak she didn’t even know he  _ had _ . It was raw. Doyoung was never a rational man around Eunmi because there was no rationality.

She thought that Jaehyun loved her because he had the capability to  _ feel _ . He cared about her and others. 

Doyoung was different because he could only feel for _her_ _. _

So seeing him lay down softly on the bed, eyes only for her and not the future he had created, _they_ _  had created _ , brought her only a heavy heart. He gestures for her to lay next to him, so he can cradle her in his arms and finally express the feelings he claimed not to have even twenty minutes ago. 

Isn’t there some part of her that tells her he’s doing this so she'll pity him? Let him run away so that no one comes for him?

Impossible, Doyoung doesn’t know what she has been doing this whole time. She can’t forgive a man for what he’s done to her. Karma, yes. The Karma Jaehyun had received for donating to charity, for how he’s treated her and everyone around him. The lack thereof for Doyoung, the nothingness which he is fated for. 

“Just talk,” Doyoung repeats with a smile. His eyes shut for a moment, gracing Eunmi with his vulnerability. “Like we should have done, from the beginning.”

***

She wakes earlier than usual. The sun is just starting to peek through the sky, the light blue illuminated by its presence. Eunmi closes her eyes softly as she turns her head to the right and bury it into Doyoung’s shoulder. The action makes him stir slightly, bringing his hand over to her back and pulling her closer to him. 

He sighs as he wakes from his sleep too. Though enveloped in tiredness, her presence makes him feel easy and he finds the time to stare across at her figure, so comfortable with him now. A smile falls onto his lips as her fingers, splayed across his chest, move in a circular motion over his shirt. 

“I enjoyed last night.”

“So did I,” Doyoung tells her, voice broken from the tiredness. He brushes some hair from her face to see her open her eyes in response. The way the light shines on Eunmi's irises reminds him of how the sunset shines over water. “Just talk. I should have done that earlier.  _ We  _ should have.”

She hums at his statement. “You said that last night, too.”

“Because I didn’t realise that of all the things I needed in the world, you were all of them.”

Her eyes open slowly, meeting Doyoung’s. He has desire written all over him but not like the  _ need  _ she  had seen before. It is desire for more than just one night. Not to see her call out his name but instead tell him that she trusts him enough to run into a burning building with him, too. 

For the first time in a while, she feels her heart warming to him. The ice cold, stone-hearted leader that everyone loved to hate was warming to her and all it took was that he needed Eunmi as much as Eunmi needed him before. 

He’s not stupid, though. 

“When is Taeyong going to be here?” Doyoung asks. He relaxes his head into the pillow. Once he is settled in his position, he draws his index finger to her cheek and traces over her bones. “I would like to look nice for when he kills me.”

She frown, opening her mouth only a fraction to tell him that wasn’t the case but Doyoung covers her lips with his finger and hushes her to stop her arguing. 

“I know my fate. Please just tell me the time. I don’t care for your reasons, because I know all of them were caused by how I acted towards you.”

“He will be here around 10.”

“Thank you,” Doyoung states. He turns ever so slightly to check the clock that was behind her and hums to himself. “I have a few more hours to spend with you. I want you to have it in writing that all of my money, all of my things, they are left to you.”

She's surprised by his statement. Though she knows he is being honest, he wouldn’t have asked her to record it otherwise and he didn’t bother with a comment on how she recorded everything else, there is something she doesn't understand. “I’m sorry that I did this, Doyoung.”

“I’m sorry that I made you do this, shouldn’t that be what is said?”

“But you didn’t deserve to die.”

Doyoung laughs at her statement. “Don’t be too kind to me. Taeyong wouldn’t have agreed to kill me if I didn’t deserve it.”

“How did you know who Seventeen’s leader was?”

Doyoung is left at a loss for words for a few moments. His smile disappears and he turns to look at the ceiling instead of Eunmi. “I’ve been in contact with Lee Jihoon for a while. He leads all of Seventeen. He put me in contact with Hoshi should I ever need it. I realised the power I had with Seventeen because they’re better than anyone in NCT. Their power is unmatched.”

“You don’t know NCT well enough to say that.”

“I realise now,” Doyoung returns, “I underestimated Johnny and Doyoung, as well as their men. I should have realised that the way I treated my own men would turn them against me. That Jungwoo trusted you, that Kun and Taeil wanted to be under someone who cared for them. I should have realised that if I used what I already had, I wouldn’t have needed Seventeen for anything.”

“Did you order the hit on Jaemin’s sister and Jaehyun’s cousin?”

Doyoung nods once, uneasily nonetheless. A part of Eunmi tells her that he would never regret his actions. "I had to show them that they weren't invincible."

"Johnny and Jaehyun?" she questions. 

"You haven't worked with them as long as I have," Doyoung tells her. He eyes his arm with a faded scar across it, one she had seen many times but not mentioned. "I don't suppose Jaehyun told you that he almost got Yuta and I killed because he didn't want to wait for things to be safe. Or how Johnny sent people to start a war with ACE and I had to call it off? They're not all good. You may think they are better than me, and maybe they are, but no one is  _ good _ ."

The thought lingers in her mind for more than she needed it to. Eunmi hadn't doubted Jaehyun before, nor Johnny. "They know they're not invincible."

"Jaehyun thinks he can protect you from all of this. He thinks that he's keeping you safe from Seventeen, but it was _me_. They threatened you since day one and I stopped that. I've kept stopping it since."

"You're the reason they want to kill me, Doyoung."

"No I'm not."

"You are!" Her voice raises slightly as she distances herself from Doyoung, sitting up beside him. "I wouldn't be in this without you. It doesn't matter if you wanted to protect me.  _ You're  _ the reason all of this happened."

He brings his hand to his eyes, rubbing them gently. She's not sure if he’s crying, but he might as well have been. His skin is pale, lips only a soft pink as he turns back to her and cups her cheek with his hand. Doyoung’s movements are slow, moving towards Eunmi with caution as he presses his lips to her own for the longest of seconds. 

There’s nothing more to it. It’s not a kiss to bring Eunmi to her knees or make her want him any more. He’s not kissing her because he wants her to remember him as something he’s not. 

Doyoung  _ just  _ kissing Eunmi.

She brings her hands to his hair, running her fingers through the raven black lengths, though he pulls away before she can tug on the ends. She's left to look at him and wonder just how differently things could have been, if he was able to do this from the start.

"You're not who are you because of me," Doyoung tells Eunmi. A smile falls onto his lips as he closes his eyes gently. "I underestimated you.” 

***

“I’m sorry Miss, the room appears to already have been paid for,” the receptionist tells Eunmi, apologetic smile somewhat relieving her. “It was paid for on a private card by someone twenty minutes ago. Unfortunately I can’t tell you who it was but you don’t have to worry about the amount, Miss.”

Eunmi nod at the receptionist, reciprocating her kind gesture. "Thank you, can you please make sure any further charges are put onto my card please?"

"Of course, Miss. Leave it with me."

Her facade of being  _ calm  _ disappears as soon as she's at the room which she had been called to earlier. Though she's not worried to the core, there is a seeping feeling of fear just on the surface of her bones. There is only so many times that this can happen before it gets serious and she'll be at a funeral home instead. 

"I told you that it was them!" 

Jaemin's voice echoing through the corridor brings her a wash of relief, seeing him later come from the doorway with Johnny behind him. They're bickering about something, she assumes what caused this whole  _ accident  _ to occur. They don't notice her at first, but when they do Johnny is the first to nod his head at her which Jaemin soon follows. 

"It wasn't either of our faults!" Jaemin continues to argue as he is pulled away by Johnny. "We we're only trying to protect Chenle from getting hit! He is worth more than any of us, right? 'Cause he's smart."

Eunmi is humoured by Johnny's exasperated sigh, followed by some wise words from the empire's king of  _ substances.  _ "You're all smart. Don't get yourself killed for someone trained by Jung Jaehyun. Especially when Jeno is there."

"It's not my fault he's a magnet to getting kicked in the ribs!"

The phrase alone is a shield to the fear that was bringing her down. At least if Jeno has  _ only  _ been kicked in the ribs then he will survive. Judging from all previous seven visits to the hospital Lee Jeno is a magnet for being kicked in the chest because he always  _ does  _ get kicked in the chest now-days. 

That doesn't mean each time she hasn't run to his side and pulled him into her embrace, followed by a ten minute lecture on the importance of attending the sessions held by Xiaojun on self defence. 

Xiaojun was  _ not  _ a magnet for being kicked in the chest, as it turned out. 

"I'm going to get you banned from this hospital so you learn to get out of situations like this," she tells Jeno, pulling up the chair beside him, "or maybe we should have an in-house doctor who can treat you so that you don't cost anyone each time you forget how to  _ run away _ ?"

Jeno scoffs. "Only dumbasses run away. He was close to being out! I thought Jaemin was covering my six and--"

"And he wasn't?"

Jaehyun's voice from behind her frustrates Eunmi a little. She closes her eyes and exhales deeply, not turning to the person who  _ always  _ had a problem with how Jeno fought and yet still was offering to pay for hospital treatment which never, _ever_ taught Jeno a lesson in all of this. He comes to her instead, placing both his hands on the back of the chair Eunmi is sat in. She can tell from Jeno's silence that he knows what's coming, too. 

"I told you last time to have eyes in the back of your head, Jeno," Jaehyun continues, "because everytime I pay for your room, it has an impact on everyone else."

Jeno tries to remain emotionless but ends up pouting from his elder’s words. She finds some amusement in his actions, looking up to Jaehyun who meets her gaze with a warming smile. "I thought I was the one on lecturing duty."

“I keep telling you guys, it’s an accident! It’s not my fault that everyone wants to hurt me. It’s because they’re jealous, huh? Probably the same with you, hyung. Everyone wants to murder you ‘cause they’re jealous of you too.”

“Flattery won’t win me over,” Jaehyun replies, “though spending some time with Hendery might make it up to me.”

Jeno raises his eyebrow slightly at the possibility. Eunmi reciprocates the look, unsure of Jaehyun’s plans. “You want me to work with Hendery?”

“He has some undercover stuff he needs to do and Xiaojun is currently acting bodyguard for Yuta whilst he’s in Europe. I said that you would be a good replacement. Take it as a thank you for your assistance with the issues that we were facing before. Johnny might  _ just  _ let you go if you prove you won’t be a complete fuck up in the field.”

“For real?”

Jaehyun nods, pulling a passport from his pocket. “As soon as I get the all clear from a doctor that you’re fine.”

“Yeah, of course, hyung. I’m so--”

“And Eunmi __ is in agreement that you’re able to go?”

Jaehyun looks at her, expecting Eunmi to have an opinion on the situation at hand. She looks between him and Jeno, expecting a little more encouragement from both parties. Maybe they both realised that she was less likely to agree to something she needed more convincing of. Maybe they were learning. 

For Jeno. Eunmi tells herself it’s for Jeno.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! glad this is finished. took me ages and a lot of planning. I plan to write more aus based in this same universe, probably one for NCT or Seventeen coming up next!
> 
> if you want to read this in second person, please check my tumblr -- https://taezhu.tumblr.com/post/170593414350/masterlist

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed this! please give any feedback as it is greatly appreciated for future fics <3


End file.
